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The Cat with the Pearl Earring

Fri 15 Dec 2023 - 22:53

by Deborah L. Davitt

“So it was that she found herself ten thousand feet above the sea, racing through clouds heavy with rain, chasing a trio of galleons laden with treasure that were running before the wind — but the seabound vessels couldn’t match her airborne craft for speed.”

The gibbet creaked under her weight as she shifted in place, coiling her tail up, out of reach of the crowd here in Port Royale — most of whom wanted bits of her fur as keep-sakes, it appeared. They’d probably fight over her earrings and jewelry when it came time for her corpse to be removed from her tiny prison.

Not that they’d have a hope of making her earring’s luck work for them, of course.

But that’s what she got for being famous — the Dread Pirate Grace Morraine, scourge of the skies. Her great flying ship, the Elektra, couldn’t save her now.

She licked a paw and straightened her whiskers. There was no point in going to her death untidy.

Guardsmen pushed their way through the crowd, leveling their halberds to do it. The raucous noise of the Parrot and Monkey voices in this tropical port of call faded as those good citizens sidled away from the guards and their sharp-edged weapons. “Oh, good. There’s to be a trial after all,” Grace said, rising to her feet. The gibbet swayed around her. “I thought you were just going to let me raisin away in the sun for the fun of it.”

The guardsmen — Dogs to a man — winced. “Come along,” their leader said, producing a key and unlocking the door of the swaying gibbet. “The Magistrate wants to see you.”

“Do I want to see him?” Grace wondered out loud.

The Dog closest to her grinned crookedly. “Oh, yes. He’s about to make you an offer you shouldn’t refuse.”

The Magistrate was, of course, a Poodle. Long of nose, disdainful of expression, with curls of hair piled atop his head. (Grace was sure it was a wig, well-powdered.) “Grace Morraine?” he said, regarding her through his pince-nez glasses. “There are two ways this meeting can go.”

She stared at the pitcher of water at his elbow. She hadn’t had so much as a sip in two days. “I’m listening.”

“One, you can say no, and you can go back to your gibbet.”

“Let’s say that I say yes.” She flicked her tail insouciantly, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Do I get to live?”

“Aye. You’d take this letter of marque,” he held up a piece of paper, “and you’d agree to continue your depredations on the shipping lines, leaving, of course, the ships of your countrymen strictly alone.”

She felt her eyes widen. “And the catch is?”

“You sell the cargos you capture to us. For a price we set. You pay your taxes. You become–” The magistrate barked out a laugh. “–an honest citizen.”

Grace considered this. With the only other alternative being the gibbet — a gibbet she didn’t see herself getting out of anytime soon, and the Elektra someplace distant, waiting for signs that her captain lived or died — she didn’t see that she had much choice. And yet, could she trust the magistrate?

All signs pointed to no. He’d find some way to swindle her out of her freedom, soon enough. There might be political pressure on him to show results against the podencos soon, and he might not have the manpower to do it without pirates on his side.

Still, trust him or not, she didn’t have much of a choice. “Where do I sign?”

“You can make your X right here — oh, aren’t you clever, you can sign your name.” The condescension made her twitch, but Grace soothed herself to expressionlessness. Her hackles didn’t even rise.

Well, hardly rose, anyway.

“Congratulations. You’re no longer a pirate, Grace Morraine. You’re a privateer.”

Within a week, Grace found herself back aboard the Elektra, her second-in-command yielding the tiller back to her hand with surprising grace — she’d always had Eason marked out as an ambitious sod who’d take control of the ship and not cede it back without putting it to a vote among the crew. “Privateering’s not a bad move, for the moment,” she told her crew, half Cats, the rest Parrots, Monkeys, and the occasional Badger. “Anyone who signs the marque lifts the death sentence against them. So we chase the podencos and take their cargo. Same as we would have done anyway.”

The crew accepted her word, to her great relief. She hadn’t wanted to have to recruit new sailors if the crew as a whole had been too disgruntled at the change of their fortune’s winds.

So it was that she found herself ten thousand feet above the sea, racing through clouds heavy with rain, chasing a trio of galleons laden with treasure that were running before the wind — but the seabound vessels couldn’t match her airborne craft for speed. “Bring the lightning cannons to bear!” Grace shouted, touching the pearl hanging from her ear for good luck.

The Elektra began her dive-bombing routine, letting hot air out of the balloon, reefing her sails, and plummeting towards the galleons. Grace plunged the tiller forward, adjusting pitch and yaw, as her sailors clung to the rigging and belted themselves to the cannons. Lightning sparked in her cannons, and then shot out, blue-white, across the dark indigo of the sea below…

And then the thunder of the cannons hit her, and Grace whooped in joy, ears ringing. This was life. This is what made life worth living, the glory of the hunt, the thrill of the chase. She didn’t play with her kills — oh no. But she circled the galleons, strafing their decks, sending crewmen — all Dogs, all podencos, leaping overboard to avoid the blue-white lightning that sizzled fractals into the wooden decks, and set the sails on fire.

A ragged volley of answering fire came from the galleons — their lightning was red, and shorter-ranged, so Grace danced the Elektra just outside the reach of their cannons. “Just surrender, you daft buggers!” she shouted in a gap between thunderclaps. “Heave to, and prepare to be boarded!” Her fur bristled from the electricity ambient in the air, making her look twice her normal size.

The three galleons slowly surrendered, lowering their flags. She could see sailors throwing buckets of sand on the flames, buckets of seawater. Trying, desperately, to save their own lives by putting out the fires.

Eason, a pure white Cat with a black eyepatch that concealed a missing eye, came to stand at her side at the tiller. “You want to go down yourself?”

“No, I trust you to handle it. The terms are that they turn over all their gold and gems, their wine and liquor.” The first would make the Magistrate happy; the latter would keep her crew happy. “They can keep their tobacco and cotton. We don’t have the hold space for that, anyway.”

“We should get a second ship, so that we do have the hold space.”

She shot him a sidelong look. “And you’d captain her?”

“I’ve proven my loyalty, haven’t I?” Eason countered.

“With the spoils from these three lovelies, we might be able to afford a second ship,” she agreed after a moment. “And yes, you have.” For the moment, Grace thought, but she kept her misgivings tucked behind her eyeballs. Give him command of his own ship, and he might depart on the next fresh breeze, and all her hard-won spoils with him.

Of course, the reason she was letting her executive officer lead the boarding party was because she had a niggling feeling that once the goods were hauled aboard, he’d just up and leave her on the galleon below.

On the other other hand, he could have just left her in port, without a ship to turn towards privateering.

To trust, or not to trust. The eternal conundrum.

Grace hovered the Elektra over the lead galleon, and the descend ropes dropped, sailors from her ship swarming down with Eason, while still more sailors with muskets stood at the railing of the Elektra, giving them cover in case the podencos decided to get frisky.

Then box after box of gold bullion began winching their way to the Elektra’s cargo hold. Barrel after barrel of Madeira wine — to the cheers of her crew. Each galleon was scavenged completely of its wealth, and then the Elektra, groaning a little under the weight, headed for the clouds once more.

“It’s a good life,” Grace told Eason as he came back aboard. Her tone was nearly a purr.

“If you can survive it,” he agreed, and for a moment, that knife’s edge was back. To trust, or not to trust.

But she put out her paw, and he took it in his, and she hauled him over the rail and back aboard. “Set course for Port Royale!” she called to her crew, and their cheers drifted down from the sky, touching even the waves below.

Tomorrow, she’d have to deal with the Magistrate. The sure-to-be-rigged ‘legitimate’ markets of Port Royale, which would surely try to shortchange her on the price of gold, the value of the gems, and the cost to repair the Elektra where the galleons’ crews had pockmarked her underbelly with musket balls. Tomorrow, she’d have to deal with taxes and credits and debits, the lack of honor in her fellow creatures, and more.

But today? Today she was sailing into a sunset, and a glass of rum waited for her in her quarters. Tomorrow could take care of itself for a few hours, while she basked in the glow of the present.

 

* * *

About the Author

Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada, but currently lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son. Her award-winning poetry and prose has appeared in over seventy journals, including F&SF, Asimov’sAnalog, and Lightspeed. For more about her work, including her Elgin-nominated poetry collections, The Gates of Never and Bounded by Eternity, and her chapbook, From Voyages Unending, see www.edda-earth.com.

Categories: Stories

Terror Lizards

Fri 15 Dec 2023 - 22:53

by CB Droege

“These were the monsters I had been sent to kill? It was clear that these two were anything but monsters.”

The plan was that we would drop onto the airstrip, clear the LZ of lizards, then the plane could land, and we’d off-load the heavy artillery. It didn’t quite go down like that, though. During the drop my chute got tangled, and I was steered off course, dropping me just off the beach outside the fence. I was sandy and dripping, much of my equipment waterlogged and useless, including my radio and gun, but I was the lucky one. After coming ashore, I watched the plane circle for another ten minutes, then it flew off north, back toward the mainland. It was clear that the rest of the team was not able to clear the LZ as planned, and they were likely dead.

“Some kind of big dumb lizards with big dumb teeth,” Harris had told us during the mission briefing on the plane twenty minutes earlier. “Apparently, some rogue scientist opened a portal to an alternate earth populated by giant carnivores, and some of them got through.” It was always some idiotic scientist. Those people are dangerous: opening portals, doing genetic experiments, or signaling alien spacecraft. Science should be outlawed if you ask me. “The scientist and his crew are dead,” Harris continued, “but a construction worker and his family are trapped in the event zone. We’re being sent in to take the beasts down and rescue any survivors we can find. Luckily, the whole place is closed up with fences, and it’s an island anyway, so containment shouldn’t be complicated.”

I was the only survivor, other than the pilot, and he would be home and safe soon. I was wet and cold, and night was coming. I needed shelter, and in the distance, I saw a small cabin up against the fence, so I set out. I was half a kilometer away when I spotted movement. I was happy at first to see another person, but the movement was strange, alien, so I ducked behind a nearby tree, and took out my spyglass, which was luckily waterproof. From my cover, I spied the cabin, and saw Talon for the first time, though I wasn’t calling him that yet.

He was in front of the cabin, standing where the grass turned to sand. He looked like a raptor with a nearly horizontal spine, supported on two thick legs. His trunk was balanced by a thick tail that nearly brushed the ground. His body was covered in heavy wrappings, including what looked a bit like a turban on his head. His forelimbs ended in three-fingered hands, and he was bending over a firepit, with a flint and steel, attempting to start a fire.

The door of the cabin opened, and another came out, the one that I would eventually call Lizzy, once we were amicable.  She was dressed in similar wrappings as Talon, making it clear that these were intentional; not just dressings, but clothing. She took a few steps down toward the beach and made some growling sounds. After a few weeks, I would come to understand some rudimentary phrases in their language, and they in mine, but at this point, I only really noticed her teeth, which were mostly flat. I remembered enough from biology class to know those were the teeth of an herbivore, though I later discovered that, while they never ate the flesh of the rodents I caught around the cabin, they would sometimes catch and grill fish.

Lizzy spoke with Talon for a moment, and he spoke back, and then she returned to the cabin, and he to his fire-building attempt.

These were the monsters I had been sent to kill? It was clear that these two were anything but monsters. They were people. Cold people trapped in a strange land. Of course, I would learn about the real monsters later, the terror lizards who had also come through the portal, and the three of us would have to work together to survive once they eventually broke through the fence, but this first day the only challenge was diplomacy. I wasn’t really thinking about things like ‘first contact protocol’. I was mostly just wet and cold.

I set my waterlogged gun aside, in case they would know what it was, and I approached their camp slowly and with hands raised, not understanding then that this was a sign of aggression in their culture. Lizzy came out, and we three faced off for a few minutes, not understanding each other at all. The misunderstanding didn’t last though.

My first bit of real diplomacy was showing Talon how to use my lighter.

 

* * *

About the Author

CB Droege is an author and voice actor from the Queen City living in the Millionendorf. He loves wizards and time-travel, but has an irrational distaste for time-traveling wizards. His latest books are Ichabod Crane and the Magic Lamp and Other Stories and Quantum Age Adventures. Short fiction publications include work in Nature Futures, Science Fiction Daily and dozens of other magazines and anthologies.  He also produces a weekly podcast, in which he reads other people’s stories: Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast.  Learn more at cbdroege.com

Categories: Stories

The Hard Way

Fri 15 Dec 2023 - 22:52

by Val E Ford

“He had taken it as his job over their several lifetimes, the killing of them both, so they could be together again. But Katy never remembered it being like this. Never such a choice.”

“Come with me…” Liam’s voice was scratchy from the tubes that had been sustaining him during the last bout of pneumonia and worsening health. He fumbled to unzip his fleece jacket with the hand that wasn’t holding hers.

An image burned itself into Katy’s being. She knew truth when she saw it; it was one of her gifts, to see the in-between spaces, and this was one, this was for her a liminal moment. She had to walk off this bridge alive today.

“Not this time, Love.” Katy stared wide-eyed down at the roiling floodwaters, hooked her knees through the space between the metal railings and moved her grip on him from a hand hold to a wrist hold. “You come back home and do it the hard way.”

“Katy… I can’t… I’m burning. It’s time. We have to go.” His voice extended into the realms beyond her ear’s ability to hear, and the essence of his elemental fire gift burned through their connection as he sent the command she’d been dreading ever since they’d realized he’d be living disabled for the rest of his life after the car accident. “I can’t live this way.” He sat on the balustrade, and his free hand pulled up on the orthopedic brace to lift his leg over the rail as she tugged at him to prevent the move. Even ill he was a great beast of a man and beyond her physical control.

He had taken it as his job over their several lifetimes, the killing of them both, so they could be together again. But Katy never remembered it being like this. Never such a choice. But maybe it had been; memories of other lives came on slowly, mostly after they found each other again. This time was different, maybe it was just that her attitude was different.

“I love you, Katy. We have to go.” His elemental fire was licking along his outline, breaking through into the air around him.

She fought his blazing command, bringing up the blessed coolness of the earth and binding the heat, sending it through her body and out her pores to meld with the wind and let it be carried away. “I’m not going. I’m not ready. You get back down here before you pull my arm off.” She started fighting his fire for him too.

“Katy! We. Are. Doing. This.” He swung his other long leg over the railing. “It’s just a step, Love.” He smiled and took it.

Katy tried to pull him back over the edge, but his mass only took a second to lift her off her heels; her knees around the rails were the only thing keeping her out of the air.  And by the moment she stopped trying to save him and instead save herself, his grip on her arm was winning. So, she breathed in the power of her connection with the spaces between and sent it flowing down the shining fluid pathway that anchored their souls together, down into the spaces between the cells of his heart muscle, and by the time she was done, so was he.

“Goodbye, Love,” she told her soulmate as his dying fingers slipped from their grip on her arm. He finished his long falling step into the flooded river alone. “We’ll find each other again,” she whispered as her tears followed him into the encompassing water below. She braced herself against the moment when their connection blazed and disappeared, and then she sat on the cold concrete for a long time taking in what it meant to be alone.

Over the next few weeks, Katy took to wandering the streets at odd hours on foot and in her car. She was unsettled, lonely, not sleeping, going long stretches between eating until a smell awoke her hunger and then she couldn’t stop. At first, she cried at silly things, sometimes everything, but after a while numbness crawled out of the crater inside her soul, and she started a new routine. She’d walk at first light to the bridge and cross, following the path along the shore until her feet didn’t want to go any further, and then she’d stop for a while, breathing in the sea air before walking back.

And then one day, like sun through a break in the clouds, she felt the moment he returned. And she cried because they were off kilter. A soulmate in diapers wasn’t an easy thought. But the crater inside her eased, and she slept well again.

And so, she started living again too. She started seeing clients once more, telling them the truths she saw in the spaces between their current selves and the ones they would become. She sketched for them their liminal scene, the one that might change them, the image that burned in her mind as she sat with them. And before they left, she gave them the picture along with whatever words seemed right. Often no words were needed; sometimes it was just a hug.

She was finishing a session with a client who had come because she was feeling upset with her marriage, and yes, she needed a hug. The picture had been of the client’s next-door neighbor opening the door to a motel room, and familiar shoes were sitting beside the bed. That hug went on a while, and when the woman steadied enough to step into her new life, Katy opened the door.

A squeal sounded under the woman’s foot as she walked out. A fluffy black and white Mountain Dog puppy cried on Katy’s doorstep, and when she picked it up, she knew.

“Hello, Liam.” A vision of herself and the slightly older puppy at obedience school with a chain collar and a leash filled her head. And she smiled, perhaps a little too long.

And so, Katy had a dozen years of friends and gardening and working and good doggie companionship, until the day Liam the dog started flaming and his wide muzzle and sharp teeth gripped deep into her lower leg, piercing the skin as he tried to pull her over the edge of the riverbank.

As she fought him, a vision filled her mind, she saw a huge set of balancing scales in a spotlight on a table. On one side a mess of her long hair and longer skirts showed the pile of bodies to be herself as she had been the five times Liam had drowned her. On the other side of the scales, she saw Liam lying pale and sprawled in his unzipped fleece jacket, seaweed in his dark hair as a spotted dog was lowered beside him. The scale barely righted.

“Fuck you, Liam! I am not dying today!” Her leg was on fire, and anger churned through her as she fell over the bank. They both rolled through the dried grass and blackberry vines and into the water. She hugged the big beloved dog, and with a practiced breath, she stopped his heart and watched him flop into the shallows.

When she got back home alone that night with stiches and burns on her calf, her tears were back, and she swore off pets.

When she woke up on Saturday morning, Katy took her graying head to the hairdresser and her sore knees to the gym, and she opened all the windows and burned sage in their house and pounded on her drum and let her towels and sheets dry in the sunshine.  Then she vacuumed dog hair off the couch and out of the corners and smiled as she made lasagna and savored their favorite meal alone.

Three months later a fuzzy black and white kitten crawled out of a stroller that a couple little girls were pushing toward her down the sidewalk. His littermates cried, their faces popping over the edge to see where he had gone. Katy picked him up, kissed him and ran to catch back up with the girls. “Enjoy this one, Love,” she whispered to the kitten. Katy scratched his ears and gave him to the youngest child. Liam the kitten yowled and bit the child. The little girl dropped him looking heartbroken.

Katy grabbed the kitten as he dashed around her legs, thumped his nose with her fingernail, and swaddled him tightly in a dolly blanket before handing him back to the child. “He’ll be better now I bet,” she told her. “He told me his name is Liam, and he loves tuna.”

Liam the cat was her constant companion as she worked in the garden and sat on the porch. But she never let him inside their house, and she never fed him. He attacked everyone who came to the house, even the UPS deliverywoman. At midnight every night for a month, he scratched and yowled until the screens were shredded.

When summer was heating up and Katy couldn’t take the hot air anymore, she took down all the screens to have them remade with scratch proof materials and reinforced with grating. She was opening the back of her car, parked on the busy street in front of the screen shop, when she was struck in the shoulder by a flying twenty-pound black and white and burning fuzzball.

She stumbled and flung the cat away and nearly fell in front of a bus that slammed on its brakes. “That is IT, Liam! You want war?” she said, looking around and patting out the places where her shirt was scorched.

Then she felt the connection snap, and she was alone again in this world as the bus rolled away from a squished black, white, and red form.

The next morning, Katy woke up with mosquito bites layered over yesterday’s burns and scratches, so she made a special trip to the store for bug spray and let off a great blast before going to work.

Her first client of the day was Doris, who really just wanted to know somebody loved her. Katy’s talents failed her. The only image in her head was of Liam choking and burning, so she put Doris’s plate of cookies into a sandwich bag and reassured her that children leaving home for college was a good thing as she walked her to her car. Then Katy quickly drove back home and opened all the doors and windows.

She found Liam hiding under the couch and let him spend the next day on her arm, drinking and dying as mosquitos do. And when he was gone, slow salty paths traced her cheeks as the drops of her tears fell beside him and upon him. She buried his tiny insect body beneath their favorite rose bush and sat on her knees remembering when they had planted it.

She longed for solace, for a full life with him, the children they had never had and the feel of his arms around her. She reached her essence deep into the soil and let the energy that lives between flow upward into her being. She brought the power up into her heart and let the imbalance of betweenness affect her, let the spaces between cells and molecules disrupt, and felt her death nearing as the gentle rhythm broke.

And then the earth beneath her feet became hot and heavy, and a drop of fire fell from the thorn of a rose and broke her concentration.

“Thank you, Liam,” she whispered and cried a while, but didn’t attempt it again. She sat out in the cold night air feeling the beauty of being alive fill and restore her.

At midwinter, their connection renewed as he entered the world again. And when the image came, she could barely believe the beauty of it. Liam had chosen a new way. He was a preemie whose head was misshapen, and his heart was barely clinging to life. So, she moved 100 miles and went to the hospital and volunteered to do some cuddling.

272 long days after Liam came into the world as a teenage addict’s infant son, Katy held him as he took his last painfilled natural breath. And then she held the now sober mother, their once great, great, grandchild and helped wield the shovels and sing the prayers as the baby, Liam, met with the earth.  And a few days later, she brought the girl home with her.

When she felt Liam enter the world again at midwinter, she felt expectation as the days grew longer and spring once more filled her garden. And then one afternoon at the end of a nap as she rocked on her porch, a vision of the scales appeared again, nearly evenly balanced.

She started walking again, saying her goodbyes to everything she loved, wandering pets, laughing children, the woman girl who was growing in her own ways.  She walked often over the bridge and down nearly to the ocean, and eventually she started seeing a great sight, a black and white seal swimming along with her as she walked. And one day when Katy was ready, she took off her shoes, her knobby tender old feet exposed to the rocks as she waded into the cold water, and they went diving. And with her last breath she also took his.

 

* * *

Originally published in ROAR 9

 

 

About the Author

Val E Ford loves life and all the messy complications of being temporarily embodied.

Categories: Stories

Stones, Sins, and the Scent of Strawberries

Fri 15 Dec 2023 - 22:52

by Kai Delmas

““Naughty, naughty wolf.” She wags her red-stained finger at me.”

I skulk among the roots and fallen branches of ancient trees. My hackles rise at the scent of fungal growth and decay. This is my dark forest and I am its wicked wolf.

The mice and rabbits scurry from my presence. They know their fate if they dare linger when I’m hunting. But such tiny rodents would only satisfy the hunger I feel for a short time. I seek larger prey, for the pit of my stomach is deep and hollow.

My ears prick up and I raise my snout. The birds’ chirping falls silent and a different song fills the forest. And with it a current flows through the air. Sweet. Red. I can taste it.

Strawberries.

My prey is near. My tongue lolls from between my teeth, my paws quicken, drawing me closer to that luring scent. Saliva drip, drip, drips as I make my way.

I find her path, follow the footsteps she’s left in the muddy track. I listen to her soft song and take in the rich smell of strawberries that linger where she treads. Her red cloak billows up ahead.

I rush down the path and prepare to pounce, to swallow her whole, to fill that hollow belly of mine and end the gnawing hunger within.

But something isn’t right.

She turns, freezing me in my tracks. Clear blue eyes and rosy cheeks greet me. She pops a strawberry into her mouth, chews and smiles, red dripping from her chin.

“Naughty, naughty wolf.” She wags her red-stained finger at me.

My jaw is ready to snap. Bite those little fingers right off. But all that I can muster is a guttural growl.

“This isn’t how our story goes.” She pulls another strawberry from her basket and bites down on its soft, red flesh.

My hunger grows and I want to lash out but I cannot. The clear blue sky above the treetops ripples and shimmers. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I…

I shake off the wrongness that comes over me and watch the girl place a large rock into her basket.

I try to open my mouth, to question the girl, but my throat tightens. My teeth clench as I stare at the girl.

Her lips stretch into a wide grin, more wicked than mine ever could.

“It’s simple, really. Off to grandmother’s house I go.” She lifts another rock into her basket. “We meet and you go on ahead. Then we meet again. That’s what happens every time. Forever and ever.”

A shiver runs down my spine; my fur bristles and I’m overcome with cold. A rushing sensation is all around me; everything I see is blue and I cannot move beneath the rushing stream.

I drag in deep lungfuls of air and look back at the girl, her fingers red and sticky. The endless pit that is my stomach growls in protest and dread. But there’s nothing I can do.

This isn’t how our story goes.

I turn to leave and bound into the woods.

Her voice trails behind me, “See you soon.”

* * *

I find grandmother’s house. My very own footprints lead me there. They always do.

The hollowness of my stomach has grown, yet I feel heavy and sluggish. I creep up to the open door, my belly dragging on the forest ground.

Before I can announce my presence to trick the old woman, the scent of strawberries rushes over me.

“There you are.” The girl sits at the kitchen table, her smile wide and full of teeth.

“We’ve been waiting for you.” Her grandmother’s mouth stretches dark and terrible, mirroring her granddaughter’s.

My legs quiver and I drop to the wooden floor. They grab my heavy body and lift me onto the bed, belly up.

Too overcome with wrongness to speak, I whimper.

They cackle as the girl heaves her basket onto the nightstand and her grandmother pulls large shears from beneath the bed.

The girl opens her basket to reveal dozens of stones. “This isn’t how our story went the first time.”

She takes the shears from her grandmother and jams them in my gut. She cuts — snip, snip, snip — as if my skin were nothing but cloth. I can only watch in shock as pain washes over me.

She digs around and removes her hands, red and sticky. The scent of strawberries becomes too much to bear. I retch to no avail.

“You see, this story of ours has long been over.” The girl begins lifting the stones from her basket to place them inside my stomach. “But it will never be over for you. You’re wicked and you must pay for your wicked ways.”

I squirm but cannot get off the bed.

Cold envelopes me and the stones in my belly drag me down, keeping me at the bottom of the stream. I cannot move. I can never leave my sins behind.

“You’ve done this to yourself.” Grandmother dons her glasses and sews my belly up with tight stitches made of red thread.

“You deserve every second of it.” The girl pulls me out of the bed. My limbs stiff, my belly heavy with stones.

She leads me outside to the stream behind the house. Brings me to the edge.

I don’t resist.

I know she’s right. It’s too late for me to change.

She shoves me into the rushing water.

I sink down, unable to swim or move at all.

I’m cold. The sky ripples above me through the rushing stream.

All I can do is dream.

Of my dark forest. Of my paws thudding along the damp earth. Of the sun setting through endless trees.

Of the girl’s footprints in the mud and how I follow her scent of strawberries.

 

* * *

 

About the Author

Kai Delmas loves creating worlds and magic systems and is a slush reader for Apex Magazine. He is a winner of the monthly Apex Microfiction Contest and his fiction can be found in Martian, Etherea, Tree And Stone, Wyldblood, and several Shacklebound anthologies. Find him on Twitter @KaiDelmas.

Categories: Stories

The Goddess of Secrets

Fri 15 Dec 2023 - 22:52

by David Penny

“She accepted Death’s courtship. Afterwards, darkness was clear to her as water to a fish, and she knew no fear from unseen things.”

“Listen well, my precious ones, and I will tell you of our Mother, the Goddess of Secrets.”

The alley cat nosed more newspaper around her kittens. Cruel wind chilled all their bones. She licked stray whiskers, soothed hungry cries. They clamoured for her story.

* * *

In the beginning, the world was light. Many Gods, bright and cruel, roamed the land. People were of all shapes and cowered from the God’s self-important wrath. The God of Death was born from necessity and laboured eternally. You see, Death was smaller, less important in those times. He was just, and fair, and implacable in his kindness. Death did not know all then, and some survived when they should not, but that is another story.

One bright moment among many, a woman fled from the unkind Gods. She was beautiful, with graceful limbs and curving tail, proud as an arched whisker, and sharp of wit as a well-groomed claw. The Gods chased and laughed and fought amongst themselves for the right to claim the spark of joy in her heart. She was afraid.  The world was light with no dark places to hide. Death knew her and waited by her side. She begged Death, not for life, but for spite, to keep her joy away from the cruel Gods.

Death obliged, and hid her inside himself, the single unlit place in all creation. He gave her a choice — stay with him in darkness forever and be safe or leave into the light and meet her end with the other Gods. If she left, her spark would die with her, because Death had no power over other Gods at that time.

She stayed, and wept, alone. Death was also lonely, for no one whispered love to him in those times. He came to her softly in her first night, and she was blind, afraid.

Yes, my darlings, Gods can visit inside themselves. They drink paradoxes like we drink cream.

Death whispered kind words and gave her a gift, not of light, for that was beyond him, but of shades and shadows. He stole the black behind the moon, wrapped it with tender words and presented it on bent knee. She accepted Death’s courtship. Afterwards, darkness was clear to her as water to a fish, and she knew no fear from unseen things.

A joy shared is a joy doubled, so she shared herself with him, and Death claimed part of her spark, freely given. This was her plan. Death was a kind prison, but prisons chafed. She resented the freedom Gods gave themselves. She whispered her anger in Death’s ear and made up a secret that Gods could die. In love, Death believed her.  No more were Gods immortal in the world.

Death summoned himself for the first time. He slew a cruel, brilliant God in her name. The divine corpse-void brought the first proper darkness into the world. Death hid the dark in him to conceal his deed. Death grew, and the woman could stretch out once more. She murmured soft praise to her lover. The Gods did not see, for they could not conceive of their own destruction.

Again, she drew Death into her to share her spark of joy. Again Death slew in her name. Death grew once more. Three, and three, and three again were slain for her. She danced through the halls of Death and sang her joy through the echoing chambers of Death’s love for her.

The Gods knew treachery now, and came to kill Death, but Death would not come for himself. With the strength of her song inside him, Death threw back all who tried. The Gods discovered fear and withdrew from the darkness of his touch. Light flickered in the world, dangerous to all the people, for the void claimed any place where the divine light did not fall.

Death came to her once more for wisdom. She whispered into his ear. The Gods, so fearful of his touch, were herded outside the world, locked behind the void corpses of the nine, plucked from the body of Death, left where their Godly light touched the people but could not harm them. The woman filled to bursting with the nine-fold doubling of joy now returned to them. She bore Death’s shadowy children, every night, for many nights, each with a sliver of their shared joy. These shadows became night and filled the corners of the world where the light did not touch. People became safe in the darkness for the first time.

At last, she lay exhausted, curled inside a Death too small to contain her. Their last child and only daughter, with eyes that saw all, and ears that heard all, nestled in her arms. Death whispered all his secrets for there was no other way to express the fullness of his love. He shared his divinity as she shared joy. Unconfined at last, the Goddess of Secrets padded away from the safety of Death for the dark patches and secret ways of night. Her daughter followed, soft and sharp, kind and vicious.

All shadows whispered to her, and she knew all, from love found in the shade of a tree to the shadow of evil inside a twisted heart. She whispered all these secrets to Death, and none could ever hide from him again.

Her daughter’s children, and children’s children bore the co-mingled spark of joy from nine divine deaths. Death honoured each one, in memory of his undying love.

* * *

“And that, my kittens, is why you must watch everything, and peer into all spaces, so your Mother of Secrets can whisper to her love. Do this, and you can greet father Death as a friend until the ninth, when you will go with him forever.”

The alley cat licked her kitten’s foreheads once more and whispered her love into their ears. The wind blew colder. The kittens slept, for now. She looked up to see her friend, Death, waiting at her side, the fourth time for her. He stroked her kindly, once, and stroked the cheek of her youngest, and weakest, who blinked awake, eyes wide but unafraid. Death took only his due and the kitten tumbled back to sleep. They all slept soundly. Tomorrow was another day, and there were kittens to feed.

 

* * *

About the Author

David Penny lives with his wife and daughter in Ontario, where he also plays host to their perpetual house guest and cat Louis.  When not writing, David likes to fiddle around with a violin and spend far too many hours prepping and running various TTRPGs.  He works in the civil engineering field, but would rather read stories of all kinds than more technical documentation.

Categories: Stories

Stormlands

Fri 15 Dec 2023 - 22:51

by Penndry Dragonsworth

“Only Contrary could run away from home with nothing but the fur on her back, and end up in the lair of the single magical creature able to thrive in this horrible, magic-twisted place.”

The lioness had misplaced her sister. Not her pack-sister, pride-sister, or blood-sister; not her hunt-sister, heart-sister, or sister-in-the-mysteries: her sister, full stop. The fact that the lioness had been away at University studying sorcery for the last three years made no difference at all to the matron-mothers when they contacted her through crystal — at great expense and inconvenience they were sure to mention. They told the lioness: “The only tie Contrary claims is yours, therefore you must bring her home.” The divinatory-aunts had named her sister Contrary and either through fate or parental expectations, she lived up to that name with verve and enthusiasm — at least until she vanished.  The lioness wondered why they would want such an adept provocateur returned to the pride-castle, but the matron-mothers were adamant: “She is ours, and we did not give her leave to go.”

The lioness wished (not for the first time) that her beloved Contrary had claimed allegiance to anyone else. There was no way she was going to convince any of her hunt-sisters or travel-sisters to leave the familiarity of home territory and the safety of the pride-castle for one who took no place in the family. The lioness sighed, begged forbearance from her advisors, and hied herself home to look for clues.

If there was anyone who could provide a counteragent to the whims of her mothers, it was her divinitory-aunts, but they shut the chapel on her arrival so quickly she very nearly lost a whisker to the doors.

Her father just said, “Then don’t. It’s one less mouth to feed, innit,” when she asked as a last resort.

Easy for him to say, but it was her hide the matron-mothers would shred to ribbons if Contrary wasn’t found.

* * *

Contrary had gone to the Stormlands but left the lioness a clue in the form of a small carved figurine. The bird with thunder in its wings smelled like dolphins, lightning, flooded dreams, and wet bird. It rattled when the lioness shook it. It could only have come from one place. How she hated the Stormlands! Any sane person avoided the wet, violent, chaotic, wet, dripping, wet place. But. Always but.  “She is ours, and she had no leave to go.”

The lioness sighed again. Even plain-sisters-full-stop were family, and family belonged to the matron-mothers. She informed the matron-mothers of her destination and thought longingly of her sorcery research as she pulled her heavy-weather gear out of storage.

* * *

Finding Contrary in the Stormlands was a slog. The rocs and thunderbirds who ruled the Stormlands disrupted the aether with their very existence and the lioness’ waterproofing spell failed within the first week. By the time she finally tracked down her sister, her shoes squelched, she’d been through two hurricanes, fifteen major thunderstorms (apparently they only counted as major if you were struck by lightning and oh! How she hated this place!), had muddy hail thrown in her face by a waterspout-surfing dolphin man, and was pretty sure her fur was growing algae.

Only Contrary could run away from home with nothing but the fur on her back, and end up in the lair of the single magical creature able to thrive in this horrible, magic-twisted place. That this so-called “lair” was a mansion and the magical creature was a famous ice-dragon and an artist just added to the unfairness of it all.

The lioness sighed as she looked up at the mansion’s decorative pillars, green with algae; she sighed again as she looked higher at the extensive gutters with corner statues, fanciful grotesqueries spewing water like fountains; she looked at the long winding pathway to the door, overhung with picturesque mossy trees dripping yet more water. But. Always but. “She is ours, and she had no leave to go.”

The lioness sighed a third time and started walking. A piece of wet moss fell on her head.

* * *

“You,” she said to Contrary, and that small word spoke pages on how she felt about this situation, “are coming home.”

“No,” said Contrary, twirling her ice wine by its stem and dangling a paw off the opulent chaise lounge. She looked at her sister’s sodden, drooping whiskers, took in her squelching shoes. The lioness really had tried to do right by her, but was too enmeshed in the family to understand why she couldn’t stay. “Sister, tell the matron-mothers I am muse to an ice dragon. Surely that will be enough status to satisfy them.”

The lioness shook her head. “That’s not how it works.”

“You left for Uni,” the ice dragon pointed out. She was smudged with paint and magical reagents. The lioness sniffed. Artists.

“The castle had need for a wizard.”

What actually happened was this: first the lioness had confessed her sorcery to her heart-sister; then they both petitioned their hunt-sisters with charts and maths; then they and the hunt-sisters begged blessings from a divinatory-aunt who eyed them skeptically but cast the auguries anyhow; and by the time the lioness, her heart-sister, her hunt-sisters, and the divinatory-aunt took her cause to the matron-mothers, the sisters-of-the-mysteries had already whispered in the matron-mothers’ ears and it was a good thing the lioness was here because the matron-mothers had just decided the north tower needed a wizard.

The lioness looked at the ice dragon. The lioness looked at Contrary. Was it fate or expectations that brought them to this. She thought of her time at University. She thought of the matron-mothers and their proud, noble lineage (she thought of the matron-mothers and their sharp, strong claws). She thought she was dry enough for at least one containment spell.

“Sister, you had no leave to go.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Penndry Dragonsworth lives in the Midwest with two cats and collects small vintage cameras. In the summers, Penndry does low-key urban foraging to make jam.

Categories: Stories

Kaliya, Queen of Snakes

Fri 15 Dec 2023 - 22:51

by Amitha Jagannath Knight

“I returned to the village and ate every single person who had ever wronged me, starting with my family, and then the boy I was supposed to impress and the woman who hoped to be my mother-in-law…”

Once, I was a human girl.

You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but long ago, when devas and demons roamed the earth, I was a human girl who dreamed of being a dancer.

The rains had finished, and the Kaveri River swelled threateningly close to the outskirts of the village. In no rush to return home, I sat idling by the riverbank in the marshy reeds, my toes in the water, dreaming of dancing. I wanted to feel the rhythm of the drums in my body, of the high flute winding around my skin. More than that, I wanted to be free of my family.

But instead, that was the day I would meet my future husband. My family was eager to marry me off. I had heard them say as much that morning. My father had been out working the fields, but Amma and Paati had sat just outside our dung hut preparing for the meal while I was inside sweeping.

“If this boy doesn’t marry her, there is no one left to take her. Useless girl.” Amma’s stone pestle ground forcefully into the idli rice and even from inside I could hear it sloshing.

“Don’t give them a choice this time,” Paati advised. “Just pay them off and be done with it.”

My face burned with fury and embarrassment. No matter how clean this room was, they would never be satisfied. I was done with this place. I was done with my family. Tossing my hand broom aside, I rushed outside.

“If no one wants me, then offer me to the temple dancers!” Temple dancers were married to the temple. They only took a spouse if they chose. Their role was to tell the stories of the gods and pass them down to the common folk so that we could understand our history. I wasn’t keen on the idea of performing for anyone, not even the gods, but if that was my only choice, so be it.

“Chee!” Amma said. “Don’t be ridiculous. I will not sell my daughter to that life.” With a thud, the pestle dropped as she rose to face me. “Those women performing for some dance master under the same roof as those priests. What do you think happens? How do you think that looks for us?”

“Shameful,” Paati said. She took up the pestle and continued the grinding.

I crossed my arms. “How could that be any different from being sent with a dowry to live under another family’s roof, betrothed to some village boy who has rights to my body?”

The slap came so fast I didn’t even have time to blink.

“Go collect water and don’t spill half of it like you always do.” She sat back down, muttering, “Girl wants to be a dancer. She can’t even walk without tripping over her own feet!”

“Shameful,” Paati repeated.

And so I sat, with a hand on my still-stinging cheek, with only the Kaveri River to comfort me. If I wasn’t wanted at home, I would go somewhere else. I would leave this place. Sighing, I slipped my feet into the cold water and wiggled my toes beneath the rippling surface. A beam of reflected sunlight struck my eyes, and I suddenly felt a sharp bite of understanding, that my toes were wrong somehow. There shouldn’t be ten toes. No. Ten was the right number, but not for toes. My legs were wrong too, my whole entire body was wrong. I could feel it deep into the marrow of my bones. I wasn’t meant to look like this. I wasn’t meant to be this. I slipped my whole body into the water until I stood shoulder high in the pulsing waves of the Kaveri River, the rushing water closing in around me like a mother-in-law winding a sari too tightly around a bride. My limbs pressed in close.

“No!” I cried as my limbs fused together to my body. “This was a mistake!” I thought I would be squeezed to death, but then my muscles pushed back, thick and strong. I was expanding, growing. My warm brown skin itched as it changed to green gray scales. Painfully, my whole body stretched and stretched until I was longer than the tallest trees in our village. My dark hair fell out, but then — my head split ten ways. I could hear, smell, and taste things I had never even dreamed of before. The human inside me was confused and frightened, but I soon realized that I had ten times the intelligence, ten times the keen eyesight, and ten tongues to talk back to anyone who would insult me.

I was a glorious serpent such as the world had never seen.

A voice came from the river, deep and low, but sweet. “A new body needs a new name. What shall yours be?”

Kaliya, I thought, the name pushing its way to the forefront of my mind. My name is Kaliya.

As though in rebuke, I heard my father calling my old name. He had come to fetch me. With a smile, I ducked beneath the water.

“Where are you? Stupid girl. The boy will be here soon, and you haven’t started the lunch!”

Spotting my clothes along the river bank, he gasped. “Aiyo!” He assumed the worst. “Swimming naked so close to the village?” he cried. “Anyone could see! Your reputation will be ruined! Come out of there now and cover yourself!”

At the sound of his voice, my insides quaked. I could feel my frightened human form threatening to reemerge and split my tail in two. I am no longer human. I reminded myself. I am a snake. I am sleek and strong, and I dance for no one.

Especially not my father.

I reared up my body to its full and glorious height. At fifty feet tall, my luscious serpentine scales glittered with water that rained down into my father’s eyes.

“Yessss, Appa,” I hissed. “I am naked. Naked and FREE!”

He screamed in horror. And then… well. Let’s just say a girl gets hungry after a good shape shifting.

I returned to the village and ate every single person who had ever wronged me, starting with my family, and then the boy I was supposed to impress and the woman who hoped to be my mother-in-law, until finally I had devoured my entire village. As I swallowed them all down, ten at a time, my esophagi squeezing their bodies, I felt their poisons leeching out into my veins.

Understand now?

I wasn’t originally a venomous snake — it was them. It was their bitter poisons that ran through my body.

From there I traveled downstream, from village to village, seeking out fresh victims: people who poisoned girls and tried to keep them in their place. People who wanted girls like I had once been to be nothing but snakes in a basket — kept and called out on command, dancing and swaying to someone else’s music. I devoured an old man whose three daughters he kept chained to the house, and I snapped their bonds as they whimpered with fright. An auntie who taunted young women and goaded them into marriage twisted her way down my throat. I even ate a priest or two. Or ten. And anyone who dared ask who was I to swallow entire villages, I told them:

I am Defender of Women. Nightmare of the Patriarchy.

I am Kaliya. Queen of Snakes.

My old name, the weak human one chosen by my parents, was long forgotten, shed like a dried-up old skin. I swam up and down the Kaveri and people fled from the sight of me. I understood that perhaps it could be frightening for a giant snake to appear and swallow down your tormentors, but I expected a little more delight. Gratitude even. Stories of my exploits spread far and wide. I was feared and reviled though I saw myself as a liberator of the weak and defenseless.

Discouraged and frustrated, I soon tired of revenge. The waters I swam were no longer clear and fresh, but putrid and roiling with the poisons of my kills. Not only that, but… well… I grew bored. Lonely, even. I almost missed my family. Almost.

I invited those I rescued to join and follow me, but each and every one of them refused. I was too frightening, too powerful. They ran away with horror. What I wanted were people who understood me, a life with joy and music and freedom.

It is lonely being one-of-a-kind.

I had once heard stories about a land for snakes — a place where they lived free of humankind. I slithered my way there, eager to meet those who would understand me. Understand my need for freedom and community. Was it possible to have both?

For months, I swam, traveling from river to sea to river again until finally I found my way to the end of the world, to the churning ocean of milk. And there was Ramanaka-dvipa. The haven for snakes, created by the gods.

The island was filled with groves of fruit trees, branches heavy with ripe mangoes, guavas, and colorful birds with sweet voices. Large mansions dotted the landscape, each with a tank of lotus flowers at the front. Truly I had found a serpentine paradise.

Eager to meet a like mind, I slithered to the first door I found, and pushed. But the door was locked.

What kind of paradise had locked doors?

“What is this?” I called out. I slammed my heavy tail against the door. “Who is inside? Where are the snakes?”

A harried voice whispered from the other side of the door. “Take cover! Garuda will be here soon!”

“Garuda?”

“Yessss!” he hissed. “Put out an offering so you may be spared.”

“Offering? What offering?”

An emerald snake peered out of a window. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

“I haven’t been here before,” I said.

“Then you won’t remember Garuda’s voracious appetite. Every month we give him offerings in exchange for him promising not to terrorize us again. If you have children, offer them now, or else you may be eaten yourself!”

With that, the snake disappeared inside, banging the window shutters behind him.

Seeking more clarity, I went to the next mansion, and the next and the next. And then, I saw it: A large golden statue of an eagle in the center of the village. An idol of the one who had subjugated them. And on the stone steps before it, a basket, filled with baby snakes. Most of them girls.

Even here, the kingdom of snakes, girls were nothing but bodies to be given up, given away. Discarded. Just as my parents had wanted to do with me. Before fury could wrap its hot fingers around my cold-blooded veins, I heard it — a great rush of wind that shook all the fruit from the trees.

Screech!

Peering up at the sky with all ten of my heads, I saw a large bird with a wingspan as long as my body circling the cloudless azure skies. Instinctively, I hid behind a wall before Garuda could see me. His golden feathers shone majestically, his beak as sharp as my fangs. Like all birds, his eyes were beady, but keen, and he swooped down, alighting on the idol.

Before me was Garuda, King of Birds.

As a human, I knew Garuda only as Lord Vishnu’s courageous vahana. He was someone to be revered and worshipped. To the snakes of Ramanaka-dvipa, he was someone to be feared and obeyed. But I was Kaliya. I was sleek and strong, and I danced for no one.

Not my father.

And certainly not Garuda.

Flicking out my tongue, I could taste his scent — molting feathers and bird droppings. Not scents of courage, but of flawed mortality. He said nothing, he simply lunged for the offerings, ready to devour the baby snakes.

But I got there first.

With my ten gaping maws, I swallowed every last one of them, sending their little bodies wriggling down my throat. Then, I swam hard for the ocean while Garuda was left frozen with shock.

I coughed up the babies, releasing them to the waters. “Swim!” I hissed. “I’ve rescued you.” But they only gaped at my gigantic ten-headed form with confusion and terror on their faces, mirrors of all the human girls I had saved.

By now, Garuda had recovered, and his strong wingbeats blew powerful waves through the water. “Who dares steal the offerings intended for the great and mighty Garuda?” He flew down, setting his powerful claws before me on the sand.

“It is I, Kaliya, Queen of Snakes! Begone from here! You will no longer terrorize this place.” With that I struck, sinking my venomous teeth into his breast.

“Fool!” he screeched. “You are no match for Garuda!” Quicker and fiercer than my mother’s stinging palm, he had wrapped his talons around my throat. He sailed into the heavens, carrying me in his tight grip until he suddenly let go, and I plunged towards tall mountains.

I was certain I would die as soon as I hit the rocks.

But when it happened, and my body struck stone, only my breath was knocked out of me. That was all. I still lived. My glorious scales were even tougher than I had imagined.

“Let this be a lesson to you!” he announced, as he saw me move, his voice resounding on the hills. “Tell the serpents—”

Before he could finish whatever insipid pronouncement he had prepared, I reared up and with all my might, I leaped for him, wrapping my body around his. We hurtled to the ground, but this time when we fell, I was prepared. As he let out a cry of shock, I squeezed tight, so the breath could not return to his lungs. I sprayed venom into his eyes. He screeched weakly in protest. I squeezed harder, eking his very last breath from his lungs. Writhing in agony, he snapped his beak this way and that, and in doing so he managed to grab hold of one of my tongues and bite it clean off.

Blood spurting from my mouth, I released him and hissed with pain. With a great inhale, the air rushed into his lungs, and he shot back up into the sky. There he screeched, circled around once, and then suddenly dove back down. I will not lie; I trembled seeing that great beak like a deadly arrow from the heavens aimed straight for me. As fast as I could, I slithered away, heading back to the beach, using all my strength to try to escape and reaching — just barely reaching — the waters when I felt his beak close down on the tip of my tail.

Like a fisherman, I reeled him in towards me, into the ocean where I now had the advantage. I lunged, ready to wrap myself around him again, but he let go and flapped his great golden wings, sailing away overhead again.

“There is one who will find you yet!” he cried. “Vishnu has been reborn!”

Vishnu?

His words echoed in my ears like a prophecy, but I failed to grasp the significance.

What did Lord Vishnu have to do with me?

I returned to Ramanaka-dvipa, ready to be welcomed as a heroine, a savior of serpents. But instead, I faced an angry mob prepared for revenge, behind them the children I had rescued.

“YOU!” They screamed and charged at me, but I was bigger than all of them, the height of ten of them combined and even battle-weary I knew I could take them. As they slithered towards me, I separated my heads to increase my size, looming even higher above them. Frightened, they stopped in their tracks.

“Garuda will be angry!” one spluttered.

“He will exact his revenge!” someone else said.

I hissed. “I have defeated him, and he has flown away in disgrace. He’ll not dare return so long as Kaliya, Queen of Snakes, is around.”

But the serpents continued to argue. “You are no queen of ours!” they said.

I spat venom at their feet, and then with one mighty swipe of my tail, I toppled the Garuda statue they worshipped. Then I slithered away, heads held high.

If they did not appreciate my help, then I would leave them to their fates.

I returned to my itinerant life of devouring cruel people who deserved it, while being reviled by every woman and child I helped. It was a satisfying, yet incredibly lonely, life. I reassured myself that at least I was with the one person who knew and recognized my worth.

Myself.

That was better than marrying some village boy my parents chose for me, wasn’t it? Was it?

* * *

One day in the Yamuna River, as I was dozing beneath the waves after a large kill, I heard fishermen gossiping above me in their raft.

“Krishna sucked the life right out of her as she fed him milk. Apparently, she had meant to poison him, just as she’d poisoned all the other babies. But this time, she was the one who died.”

“No!” the other fisherman gasped. “Is it true?”

“And he charms everyone he meets. The gopis in his town forget their cows and dance with him all day as he plays his flute. They go home filled with stories of Krishna.”

I listened as the tales of this Krishna continued. Who was this young man who both killed and dazzled women? Was he the next man who deserved a lesson from Kaliya?

“They say he is Vishnu incarnate.”

Thrusting out of the water, I asked, “Where is he?”

The fishermen nearly fell out of their boats from fear and the force of my wake. They cowered, whimpering.

“Answer me!” I demanded, leaning in closer. “Where is he? Where is this… this… Krishna?” His name came out a hiss, and I flicked my tongues in their faces. They cowered and whimpered until one of them finally spoke.

“Go- Gokul,” he stuttered.

I dove back into the water, not even looking to see if the fishermen had been flung out of their boats. There was no time to waste. Gokul was less than half a day’s swim upstream. If I was going to be killed by Vishnu, so be it.

Once in Gokul, I decided to take things slowly. I bided my time in the water, letting him come to me. I grew hungry waiting, feeding only on fish, not wanting to alarm anyone and thus alert them to my presence. The next day, though, I heard it: his flute, high and fluttering. The notes winding around my heads, finding the way to that human heart that still beat inside of me, nearly forgotten. The music resounded through my body, and I could feel the warm blood of the young woman beneath my scales responding.

I dove back into the water. This was dangerous. His flute was hypnotic, and I refused to succumb to its wily powers. When the music stopped, I cautiously sent only one of my heads to peer above the surface of the water. There sat a group of young people, all about my age, talking and laughing. Flirting. What was this? I had never seen people like this before with such ease around each other and such freedom. Didn’t they have chores to do? Duties to perform? Families to answer to? My village had been nothing like this. Nor had the many villages I had visited since. To live with such ease and laughter and music was almost incomprehensible. What kind of magic did this Krishna have?

At first, I didn’t see him, because he was at the center of the group, but when he took up his instrument again, everyone sat down to listen. And suddenly there he was.

Gracefully he held the flute to his lips. His skin was an unusual color, so dark it was almost black, though with a dark blue hue when the sunlight hit — like the dark beauty of the ocean spreading beneath a night sky. When his eyes met mine, I saw that he knew me, just as he knew everything, and then, I knew everything. This was no mere boy. This was a divine being who could see that my life was as divine as his. And I also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could not kill him. An odd sense of peace and finality overcame me then, knowing, deep in my soul that this was a powerful being worthy of my presence. Limitless in his powers, unencumbered by the fragility of his human frame.

Seeing that something in the water had caught Krishna’s attention, the others soon began to look as well. There was no point hiding now. As I expected, everyone screamed at the sight of me as I reared up my body. They all shouted their warnings.

“It’s Kaliya!”

“A demon!”

“She has poisoned the waters!”

“She fought Garuda and won!”

Krishna didn’t speak. Without a moment’s hesitation, he dove into the water. He floated there before me, and wordlessly we looked into each other’s eyes.

One of my brains told me that I should run away. Now. For this was Vishnu incarnate, and as Vishnu incarnate, he could not be killed. Not by me, not by a woman with poison smeared on her breasts, not by anyone.

He held out a hand, indicating that he meant no harm. Slowly, he made his way towards me, and I stayed still, unsure what to do or what he wanted. He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me gently beneath the surface. Music filled me then, the rhythm of the river, the rhythm of all the rivers, the oceans, the universe, all surged through my body.

Skin to scales we danced. We glided in the water. Without words we reached an epic union of souls that I still cannot explain.

Underwater, where none but us and the voiceless waves could hear, he whispered to me. I too am a shapeshifter, he said. And he told me of his life as Matsya the fish, of his life as Kurma the half-tortoise. He said he understood what it was to be both human and animal and yet also divinity itself.

The people are scared of powerful women, but I will teach them, he said. He released me from his hold. Before we part, I need you to do something for me.

“Assssk and I shall follow,” I said, the words rushing from me so fast they came as a shock when I heard them.

Dance for me above the waters. Show the humans they have nothing more to fear from Kaliya, the Queen of Snakes.

This made me stop. Had his honeyed words been nothing but music meant to hypnotize a serpent? To convince me to come out of my basket?

I was Kaliya, Queen of Snakes. I was sleek and strong. I danced for no one. Not my father, not Garuda, and not even Krishna, avatar of Vishnu.

“No,” I said forcefully, not caring that I was talking back to a god.

Krishna took my refusal in stride. I am currently human, and thus I have been reborn, but—

I twisted away from him. While I could not hurt him, that didn’t mean that I was forced to listen to him either.

He was a fast swimmer and easily caught up to me.

But, he continued, as Lord Vishnu, I can grant you that which you desire most.

“And what is that?” I spat back.

Freedom—

“I HAVE freedom,” I retorted.

Let me finish, glorious girl. I will find you freedom AND companionship.

I glared at him. He came towards me, putting his arms around me again. Skin to scales. I listened to the sweet words coming from his lips. Even I couldn’t stay angry with this divine being. I could feel all the venom, all the hatred I had swallowed begin to dispel. The waters around me began to clear as his music played in my soul. Part of me was skeptical, part of me wanted to run, and hide, and ignore his slippery words, and his slippery promises.

“Where will I go?” I asked, voice hushed.

Return to Ramanaka-dvipa, the promised home of the serpents. You will be their Queen.

“They threw me out!” I said.

I have heard what happened, but I promise they will have you now. Garuda follows my command and thanks to you, the serpents will live in peace so long as you reside there.

“No,” I said. “I cannot be their queen if they do not accept me as such. I will not force my rule on anyone, or I’ll be no better than those I have swallowed.”

Then I will grant you a new home, a place worthy of you, my queen. You will be Krishna’s first wife.

“Wife?” Did I want that?

I will not live with you. I will not rule over you. I will visit when you call me. I will stay when you like. No one need know but us. Kaliya will be the queen of Krishna’s heart. I am yours.

His promises were tempting, but I wanted more.

A voice came from the river, deep and low, but sweet. Kaliya, you deserve the community you seek.

I looked around, but I saw no one.

“Who was that? Who are you?”

I have been with you since the beginning, said the voice. In a way, you could say I am your real amma.

“Show yourself,” I demanded.

You know me, the voice said. I made you what you are.

I thought back to that day on the riverbank… who had made me? Then it came to me — “Goddess Kaveri!”

As I spoke her name, the waters around me began to coalesce into a womanly form who bowed before me, her eyes sparkling in the sunlight. Her blue green hair flowed all around her, enveloping Krishna and me into her bubble.

“Kaveri Amma! Thank you,” I said, putting my hands together reverently and bowing. For she was my true mother, she had created me, and allowed me to thrive in her waters.

I have followed you these past months, and I have seen how you thanklessly defend women. While I do not always approve of your methods, your purpose is true, but you must remember what you are.

“And what is that?”

You are Kaliya, a snake with a human soul. A human soul who deserves the community she seeks.

“Yes, but what community?” I asked. “How can I find them?” The Goddess’s form dispersed into the waters of her sister river. “Wait!” I shouted. “Kaveri Amma! How can I find them?” I groaned with frustration. Had she told me anything I didn’t already know? I felt like I was right back at the beginning of this journey — a serpent with no friends, no family, only vengeance to fuel her, but I was tired now. Too tired to continue on that lonely life. I needed love and had found it, but I also needed friends, I needed a family. I needed a community.

But how could I convince anyone to join me if they were too scared to even look me in the faces? And then a pair of eyes met mine. Krishna, avatar of Vishnu faced me. And suddenly, I understood.

Krishna had offered himself to me.

“Help me,” I said. “Your flute draws people towards you. Use your music to tell my story. We’ll find others like myself, women and people seeking a community. Let us lead them to this new land you promised where I will watch over and protect them as my parents never did for me.”

Krishna smiled and bowed. Taking that as his acceptance, I gripped his tiny body with my tail and like a toy, I placed him atop my head. Then, I lifted him up into the sky, where all could see him. His human friends, the cowherds and gopis gaped as I rose up out of the water with his small form.

Before everyone, he performed for me, playing his flute and dancing. The music and the rhythm of his life thrummed though my entire being. My soul danced with him, feeling the song that is the deepest sound of the universe play through both of us, connecting us. My body bent and bobbed in time to the music.

Through our dance we told the story of me. Of how I had been mistreated, of how I had become a snake, of how I had fought for others, of how I had battled Garuda.

All along the banks of the Yamuna River, people flocked to watch, and soon they followed. At first, it was only a trickle of people, girls I had saved who now understood what I had done for them. Then came more — people who needed a savior, who like me, had longed for a different life. Eventually they came in streams and rivers and oceans. Even the snakes found us, intermingling with humanity. Krishna granted us a new land, even bigger and more abundant that Ramanaka-dvipa.

There we lived in harmony, and I finally became who I was meant to be:

Kaliya, Queen of Peace.

I am sleek and strong, and when I dance…

…I dance for me.

* * *

About the Author

Dr. Amitha Jagannath Knight is an award-winning children’s author and a writer of poems and stories for people of all ages. She is a graduate of MIT and Tufts University School of Medicine and was also a former social media manager for We Need Diverse Books. Her previous publications include: Usha and the Big Digger, a picture book which won the 2023 Mathical Honor Award and “Locked In,” a flash fiction piece published in Luna Station Quarterly. While her parents were originally from South India, Dr. Knight grew up in Texas and Arkansas, and now lives in Massachusetts with her husband, kids, and cats. Find out more about her writing on her website at www.amithaknight.com.

Categories: Stories

Issue 19

Fri 15 Dec 2023 - 22:51

Welcome to Issue 19 of Zooscape!

There is a profound connection between furry fiction and rebirth.  We read stories about characters with scales or fur, and we’re reborn into new, imaginary bodies.  Through fiction, we can be born and reborn, again and again.

But what about the self that follows us?

What if we carry our crimes — or imagined crimes — from one imaginary life to the next, always remaining ourselves on the inside?  Can we ever really escape the cycle and become someone new?

Can the act of reading fiction rewrite who we are on the inside?

Read these stories, and find out…

* * *

Kaliya, Queen of Snakes by Amitha Jagannath Knight

Stormlands by Penndry Dragonsworth

The Goddess of Secrets by David Penny

Stones, Sins, and the Scent of Strawberries by Kai Delmas

The Hard Way by Val E Ford

Terror Lizards by CB Droege

The Cat with the Pearl Earring by Deborah L. Davitt

* * *

Now for a couple of announcements…

First, unfortunately, we’ve had to postpone our next reading period until sometime next year.  We’ll share more information as we can.

Secondly and much more happily, the first two volumes of our anthology series are out (Volume 1 and Volume 2)  and you can pre-order Volume Three! The Next two volumes are underway.  And they’re all fully illustrated and really beautiful.

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.

Categories: Stories

Issue 18

Tue 15 Aug 2023 - 03:06

Welcome to Issue 18 of Zooscape!

Sometimes it’s easier to stare danger in the face, unflinching, if you tell yourself the darkness wears fur and paws; or maybe hooves, horns, fins, or feathery wings.

Visit the nightmares and apocalypses in these stories, and come out the other side stronger for having faced humanity’s collective fears… and possibly even made friends with them.

* * *

Susurrus by Azure Arther

How Pepper Learned Magic by Renee Carter Hall

A Strange and Terrible Wonder by Katie McIvor

What Dark Plutonian Horror Beckons from the Shadows? by Christopher Blake

The Four Sharks of the Apocalypse by Tessa Yang

What Little Remains by Mercy Morbid

Hope for the Harbingers by Allison Thai

* * *

Now for a couple of announcements…

First, unlike some other speculative fiction markets, Zooscape will not be instituting any sort of policy banning AI or asking writers to disclose whether they used AI in writing their stories.  We don’t discriminate against writers based on what tools they use.  If an author can sign our contract, then it’s no business of ours how they wrote their story.

Secondly — and this one is exciting! — we are finally going to begin releasing anthologies bundling our previous issues into volumes.  We’ve partnered with the new small publisher, Deep Sky Anchor Press, and the first volume will be released on September 8th at Furvana.  You can learn more from their press announcement here.

And as always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.

Categories: Stories

Hope for the Harbingers

Tue 15 Aug 2023 - 03:03

by Allison Thai

“He, like time, never stopped for anyone, but somehow he could not find it in his heart to go against the rabbit’s wish.”

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful, you say. Yes, to be sure, but what he does is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.” ~Søren Kierkegaard

 

The tethers binding his soul were warm yet firm, pulling him up from the bowels of Hell. Impossible. Nothing could escape the downward pull of a fiery eternity, just as nothing in the physical world could defy the power of gravity. Still, somehow, he felt lighter than he ever had before, buoyed by a force that took him past the fire and muck filled with screaming, cursing sinners. Shadows of the damned wallowed in never-ending rounds of punishment, dealt out according to their vices. To be freed from such torment made him gasp in relief. What could he have done to gain this sweet release? Was he being saved?

Suddenly he found himself on water, standing on it, as the ocean heaved and bucked all around him. A storm brewed overhead, gathering, rumbling, and tumbling in swells of dark clouds. A beam of sunlight peeked through. He shuddered from the warmth, frightened at first, then quickly found it pleasant on his skin. He looked down, caught sight of his reflection, and gasped.

A horse stared back, one with a withered build, bones jutting out to form odd tents and hills of skin here and there, with off-white hair to match an off-white coat.

“Where am I? What am I?”

“You are Death, one of the Four Horsemen.” A little lamb, riding down the beam of light, had hailed him.

Though the reply was no more than a whisper, hardly heard amid the waves, the one called Death felt his knees buckle and heart race. The lamb exuded a blinding white halo, stronger than even the sun, and Death had to lower his eyes and muzzle lest he go blind. His voice dipped low with awe. “The Lamb of God.”

The animal he had been, the name he once bore—he could not remember, but nothing in his past life mattered now. Death looked around. “You say four. Where are the other three?”

“They will join you soon.”

True to the Lamb’s word, more horses burst through the ocean’s surface—one in red, one in black, and one in white. Blinking, gasping, and stumbling on the waves, they along with Death formed the quartet the Lamb had expected.

The Lamb of God addressed them in order of appearance, giving each a cordial nod. “War, Famine, and Pestilence, welcome.”

These horses too ducked their heads, more out of fear than rudeness, and quailed at the face of overwhelming power.

The one called War, blood-red and rippling in muscles, was the first to muster a response. “You called us, Lord?”

“Indeed.”

The water bore a reflection distilling some of the Lamb’s light, and from this Death took notice of the Lamb’s somber face.

“The Last Judgment is at hand. I have broken the four seals, as it was foretold, and hereby bestow upon you the task of destroying the world.”

Death exchanged looks with the other horses, and they mirrored his disbelief.

“Why us?” Famine asked. “Why appoint souls of the damned? Why not trust your own angels to do it?”

“You have been in Hell for some time,” the Lamb replied, “and because of that, memory does not serve you well. In your past lives you have made names for yourselves from the deaths and suffering of others. This world remembers you as warlords and monsters. You had been punished accordingly.” The Lamb’s voice did not ring with accusation, like a judge sentencing criminals, but was soft and sad, more like a father pining for his prodigal sons. “I chose you four out of many because you have the experience. Now I’ve raised you to be agents of calamity once more, this time in my name.”

The Lamb of God lifted an arm, summoning an array of tools from the water. “Take these before you go. War, you will bear a sword to sow the seeds of violence and discord. Pestilence, spread disease far and wide with the bow and arrow. Famine, with the weighing scale you shall run the world’s food thin. And Death, use this scythe to reap the harvest of souls.”

Death closed his hooves over the staff of the scythe, and its weight made veins stand out on his skin. He felt honored to earn the privilege of this task, grim as it may be. Anything was better than going back to Hell. He bowed even lower, till his muzzle almost brushed the water. “By your grace you brought us out of eternal flame. For that we shall carry out your will.”

Despite including the rest in his declaration, reactions among the other Horsemen varied. From the corner of his eye Death saw Famine rendered still with reluctance, Pestilence struggling to comprehend, and War squinting against the light.

“What will we get in return for completing this task?” Famine asked.

Death cringed at this bold inquiry, but the Lamb of God’s reflection rippled as he shook with gentle laughter.

“Hungry for more now as you were in your past life—I should have expected as much, Famine. I will say this: you are in no position to make any bargains. But I do everything for a reason. Just do your duty, Horsemen.” With that the Lamb departed from them, his coat of white wool one with the light.

Death nodded at his newfound equine brethren. “After you.”

The Four Horsemen shot off, surging with power that bore them before the wind, over land and sea, through the four corners of the world. Entire nations buckled under the tide of the Apocalypse. Even before the Four Horsemen were called, world leaders had their teeth bared and hackles raised at one another, unable to reach any kind of agreement or settle for peace. The air crackled with tension. All War had to do was strike a match with his sword. For all his bulk and redness, War cavorted across continents unseen, jabbing his blade here and sweeping it there to ignite the flames in people’s hearts. Animosity among species spiked. Even the meek and gentle, those less inclined to start fights, flew at each other like rabid beasts. War, always holding his sword aloft, saw to it that no alliances were formed. Not even among those of the same species. Camaraderie be damned — it was everyone for him or herself.

Famine played a part in fostering these schisms. Rivers ran dry, meat spoiled, and greens withered under his influence. What was scarce became sacred. People groveled and scrabbled for these necessities, and quickly resorted to looting and killing just to fill their bellies and live to see another day. Famine soon found himself in good company, surrounded by gaunt, stick-thin victims whose meat and fat wasted away from lack of nutrients. Famine viciously dismantled the Interspecies Protection From Consumption Act, as carnivores were driven to break the law by sinking their teeth into herbivores — fellow citizens, sometimes their own friends. The number of bodies climbed, but no one thought to keep track. The weak became meat, snatched up and swallowed down to feed the strong.

Such disregard for morals and sanitation gave way to disease courtesy of Pestilence. The Horseman slung his arrows far and wide, each riddled with every kind of poison and plague to send people by the hundreds and thousands to their graves. For a horse weighed down in boils, hair broiling with flies, and limbs weakened with rot, as arguably the slowest Horseman of the four, he did not have to run very fast or far at all. His joints, knobbly and frail as they were, could still bend the bow and that was enough. His arrows did much of the terrible work. They worked best on herds and packs, striking through many victims at once. Coughs and moans from the sick thickened the air. Contagion spread like fire, with no way to be extinguished except for the utter annihilation of those it consumed.

The Lamb of God had chosen well to bring them back as horses, for no other animal was more hardy and swift of foot to carry out the Apocalypse. Wherever War, Famine, and Pestilence went, Death was never too far behind, almost always on their tails. What else could follow such calamity but the end of one’s life? The harvest of souls was plentiful, ever growing. Death thought he would have found this somewhat enjoyable, if his past life held any indication. Instead, the sheer magnitude of souls to collect overwhelmed him. If he had an earthly body that breathed and bled, the work would have easily killed him. He had already died once, so no need to fear a second death.

Fear — the Fifth Horseman, Death liked to call it — proved even swifter and more terrible than his comrades as it drove hordes of people to take their own lives. Mass suicide became a common sight for Death, the most common source for his harvest of souls. Death watched how disaster and doom brought out the worst in people, with many cursing the end times and even more still resigned to forfeiting their lives in order to forego the slow agony of disease, starvation, and bloodshed.

Many met their deaths with despair. Only a few faced theirs with dignity. One such fellow was a young rabbit named Viktor, one of many brothers and sisters constituting a poor warren in Russia.

Death took great interest in this little rabbit, constantly looming over him, for Viktor teetered on the edge of life and death with his weak heart. Viktor was the smallest and weakest of his siblings, a classic case of the runt of the litter. Often short of breath, he was red-faced under his thin fur as the borscht his family was so fond of eating. He could hardly venture out of his home, and his family sheltered him for good reason — he’d be torn apart in a blink of an eye. Death drifted closer and closer; never before had he been so intrigued by the life of any mortal. For all his frailty and bleak future, Viktor held onto life stronger than even the fiercest lion or tiger. Out loud and in his heart, he gave thanks for every breath he took, every moment he could spend with his parents and siblings, who fretted over him and saw to it that he always had his needs met. He gave thanks for the food he was given, grown and salvaged though carrots would never be as crisp and fresh as before. He was grateful for the blankets and toys his siblings gave up to keep him comfortable and entertained. Death could not help admiring this young rabbit, who seemed to live in defiance of the depravity around him.

One night, alone in his bedroom, Viktor craned his head up to meet Death’s eyes.

“Hello there.”

That took the Horseman aback. “You can see me?”

“I’ve always known you were watching.” The rabbit did not scream or bolt out of his room. Instead he climbed onto his bed and wiggled into the blankets, like he would for any uneventful night. This amused and baffled Death.

“Do you know who I am?”

Viktor frowned, studying Death from head to toe. “You don’t look like a guardian angel. You don’t have wings.”

“You’re right. My name is Death.”

“Hello, Death,” he said, as if making a new friend. “I’m Viktor. Call me Vitya, if you want.”

“Are you afraid?”

Viktor shook his head. “I know you’ll come for me. I’ve known since I was very little, when I realized I could never run as fast or jump as high as my brothers and sisters. Everyone will find you at the end of the road sooner or later. I don’t have long, but I’d like to be with my family for a bit more, please.”

Death nodded, impressed with Viktor’s courage and touched by a politeness that he had never before received in all his time as a Horseman. Most people feared him and hated him. He, like time, never stopped for anyone, but somehow he could not find it in his heart to go against the rabbit’s wish. After all, Viktor’s soul was not for the taking just yet. For someone terminally ill and on the verge of death, Viktor still had some life in him.

“I’ll leave you alone, then,” Death said, “and come back for you when you’re ready.”

“You’re welcome to come back before that,” Viktor replied, “just to relax, if that’s possible. You look tired and lonely. I don’t think the rest of my family can see you, and for most of the day they’re out foraging, anyway. I’d like a friend to keep me company.”

Death tipped his muzzle at him. “I appreciate the offer.” And he took it whenever he could, for his duty proved very taxing and draining, indeed. After rounds of collecting souls and witnessing all manners of terrible deaths, the Horseman liked to visit Viktor and take his mind off the strain, if even for a moment. They spent most of their time together over open storybooks, fairy tales with happy endings, or silly stories that would make Death whinny and snort and break free of the somber frown that seemed to have set in his muzzle permanently.

“I love to read,” Viktor said. “It’s my escape. It takes me to faraway places and lets me be the hero I’ve always dreamed of being.”

“You’re already a hero.”

“How? I don’t swing a sword.” Viktor tilted back to behold the scythe that loomed over him. “And I’m very sure that thing would crush me if I tried to lift it.”

Death let out a rueful chuckle, hefting the weapon for a moment. “You don’t need anything like this to be a hero.” He rested a big, worn hoof over Viktor’s head, dwarfing it. “I mean that you are strong and brave in ways you can’t imagine. Believe me, I’ve killed — er, met many, many people around the world, and no one’s quite like you.”

The rabbit’s ears stood rigid and fluttered a little. His cheeks flushed, making his face even redder, and bunched up below his eyes in a wide smile. “You may not look it, but you’re very nice.”

Time was not so kind. Viktor grew more sick and frail with each passing day. He was confined to the bed and could not even risk a venture to other burrows in the warren.

Death knelt over the little rabbit’s bedside. “It’s almost time,” he murmured.

Viktor closed his eyes. “I understand.”

After supper, he asked for the attention of the entire family. Of course they were all ears, wide-eyed and curious, wondering what he had to say. Death also listened in, invisible to the rest, wondering how they would take the news.

“Everyone…” Viktor paused. His nose twitched and eyes blinked rapidly as he struggled to collect himself. With great effort he sucked in a deep breath, and went on, “Please don’t be upset, but I think now is a good time for me to say good-bye.” Stunned silence all around met him.

Finally, his father asked, “What do you mean?”

“Vitya, don’t say that,” his mother cried. She reached out to take his paw into hers. “We’re doing everything we can to care for you—”

“I know, and thank you.” Tears welled in Viktor’s eyes. “I feel I can never thank you enough. But you’ve seen the world around us, outside our warren. Even the world’s coming to an end. I am going to die, and I know you’re just trying to protect me, but you will have to let me go.” Viktor offered them a wide smile. “Don’t worry. I will see you all on the other side someday.” He bid his family good night, for the last time. He gave each sibling a long, earnest hug, while they restrained the urge to pile up on him all at once. Finally he was enveloped in arms and tears by his parents.

The lights went out. Viktor’s body went still and slack, his voice no more than a whisper. “I’m ready, Death. Take me away.”

His passing was a painless, peaceful one — the only one Death carried out alone. He had insisted on acting without the aid of his fellow Horsemen. With a pull of Death’s scythe Viktor’s soul slipped free, and without a weak earthly body to bind him, he sprinted out of the warren and floated well above the Muscovite landscape. Death followed him up, and Viktor turned to him with wide, searching eyes.

“Are you coming with me, Death?”

The Horseman gestured to the desolation below them. “I’m afraid not. I still have work to do down here.”

“Will we see each other again?”

Death had to be honest. “I can’t promise anything, but I hope so.”

“I hope so, too.” Viktor waved a little white paw. “Good-bye, for now.”

Death watched the rabbit’s soul drift — up, up, up — along a stairway to Heaven the Horseman could not see.

Parting ways with Viktor weighed down his heart. At the same time Death rejoiced that the young rabbit could leave this crumbling world after a proper farewell to his family and end up in a better place. If anyone deserved that, it was Viktor.

Death tore his eyes from the sky, a glimpse of Heaven, and turned back to search for more worthy souls to send into God’s kingdom. Unfortunately, the Apocalypse produced few instances of enlightenment and mental fortitude. Death grew weary of his work again, wondering if there would be an end to it all. In the constant accompaniment and teamwork with his fellow Horsemen, Death took it as a reprieve to strike up conversations with them.

“What is God’s plan for us after this?” Death had to raise his voice, on account of howls and screams from the mobs of starving, disease-ridden people fighting over scraps. Such an event called for a group effort, the presence of the other three Horsemen.

“You mean what’s after the Last Judgment?” War folded his arms over his huge chest. “A foolish question, Death.”

Famine’s dark eyes glittered. “On my way here I caught a glimpse of Heaven, maybe even Empyrean. I’ve never wanted anything so badly before.”

Pestilence’s ears, riddled with holes, perked. “You’ve actually seen it?”

War’s muzzle stretched from a frown. “We’re damned, anyway. God’s sending us back to Hell after we do our part.”

“Why would he do that if we are following his orders?” Death asked. “Surely he will reward us.” He paused to scoop up souls who had lost their bodies to bloodshed.

“What reward? After what we’ve done?” War snorted. “God said so himself: we’d been punished accordingly. Hell is final.”

Death shook his head. “Christ went down and came back up for the third day. He broke open the bolts binding the gates of Hell. Bolts that even Satan could not pry out. Even now the gates are left open.”

War waved a hoof in dismissal. “The Harrowing of Hell. It happened, yes, but everyone down there just takes it as hope, a chance, for a way out. Well, false hope and fat chance. Christ descended into Hell only for the righteous, anyway. We are sinners. There’s no freedom for the likes of us.” He reached down to thrust his blade into the hearts of those too tired to fight, making them spring back to their feet and rejoin the mob.

Death knew better than to fuel War’s ire, but he felt inclined to disagree. God had already done the impossible: bring up the damned from Hell. Not up to Heaven, of course (a ridiculous stretch), but onto the physical plane. That was a miracle in itself. God made use of even sinners to do his good work. Deep in Death’s unbeating heart, he felt that God would not toss them away like trash. At the same time he felt he did not deserve redemption.

“The Lamb is too detached for my taste,” War went on. “Maybe he’s making us do his dirty work. He wouldn’t soil his wool for this. And he’s hiding things from us. He gave me this sword but not my memories. I’d very much like to know who I was and what I did.”

Famine cracked a grin — a rare act, considering their line of work. “Well, I’m quite sure that even at your prime, you hadn’t started up this many wars.” Then he craned his narrow muzzle back as he pondered, as if weighing the scales in his head. “I must have wanted a lot of things in my past life. Even if I remembered them all, they don’t matter anymore.”

Death followed Famine’s gaze upward, searching for an inkling of light amidst the storm. “If God isn’t telling us everything, I believe it’s better that way. I don’t want to know what I’ve done to earn a place in Hell. I think God made us Horsemen to give us a second chance.” His grip tightened over the scythe. “Forget the past. Trust in God to lead us to a better future.”

War doubled over guffawing. “You should hear yourself. Have you gone mad?”

Pestilence did not respond with scorn as War did. Sunken eyes peeked through a matted forelock, making him look like a lost child. “Do you really think there’s hope?”

“Yes. Hope for the harbingers.” Death wanted his comrades to believe that, too.

“Whatever put that idea in your head?” Famine asked. “That little rabbit, am I right?”

Death conceded with a smile.

War chuckled. “You must have taken a real liking to him. You wouldn’t let the three of us get anywhere close to that warren.”

“I do not like giving children terrible ends,” Death admitted. He remembered the fairy tales Viktor would read to him. “I like happy endings.”

“I doubt it will end well for us.” Pestilence heaved a sigh, the huge boils sagging with his shoulders.

“That’s fear talking,” Death said. “You have to believe with all your might that God will forgive you. Forgive us.” He did not believe he deserved such a thing, but yearned for it all the same. He began to take inspiration in how Viktor led his short life on Earth, making it a habit to thank every moment he spent out of Hell, even if he stood far from Heaven. Fear of going back down there fueled his gratitude. He encouraged his comrades to do the same. As they gathered together and shared stories, Death found that War, Famine, and Pestilence had found their own Viktors in the midst of strife and suffering.

“I have found peacemakers,” War told them. “My sword can’t cut them.”

“I met givers,” Famine said, “who gave all they had when they could have helped themselves.”

“I might have produced the finest physicians the world has ever seen,” Pestilence said.

These stories pleased Death greatly. This cemented his belief that he and his fellow Horsemen were doing good work, after all. There was something to be learned here.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, the Last Judgment drew to an end. Every soul was sent up, or down, and accounted for. The Four Horsemen joined forces, combining their strength, to deliver the blow that would send the world into oblivion. Death lifted his scythe, adding to the steeple formed by War’s sword, Famine’s weighing scale, and Pestilence’s bow. They swung down together, and remnants of a sinful, imperfect world gave way before their very eyes. A huge wave of light blinded them. Death expected the downward tug, the return of his soul to Hell, now that his work here was done.

He felt no such thing. He dared to blink his eyes open, and the other Horsemen followed suit, their stances tense and unsure. What Death saw next took his breath away. Before him stood the Lamb of God, heading a multitude of angels and souls, innumerable beyond measure and compare. Death’s legs buckled and he sank to his knees.

The Lamb smiled. “Please rise. You are in good company.”

Death obeyed, exchanging wide-eyed confusion with his comrades. He certainly did not remember Hell looking like this.

“You have done as I have asked, and you did well. My tests are never easy, and I must commend you for passing the one I imposed on you. For that you will be rewarded.”

Pestilence’s mouth hung open, then worked like a fish out of water, and finally he shut it and lowered his head out of embarrassment over looking ridiculous before the Lord of all creation.

Famine managed to spring out the question. “This…this is Heaven? We made it?”

The Lamb nodded. “I’m afraid I must save a proper warm welcome for another time.” He turned his muzzle downward, and amid the light a spot of darkness remained, where an ugly serpent writhed and hissed below the heavenly host. “There is still the Enemy to vanquish once and for all. Only in his defeat can we rejoice in the founding of New Jerusalem.”

“We will help,” War said. With his ears tucked back and head bowed, he looked sorry to have doubted and spoken against God at all. Clearly he sought to make up for it.

Famine, Death, and Pestilence nodded in agreement.

“Thank you,” the Lamb replied. “Now, I can’t have you go into battle unprepared.” With a sweep of his arm, he sent up a great wind that peeled away every blight on the Horsemen’s bodies, granting them pure white coats and builds that brimmed with health and vigor. Then with another wave of his arm, he substituted their Apocalyptic instruments for blades forged in the brightest holy steel. Death embraced this new identity with open arms, thrilling in the divine power that coursed through him.

Then something else hit him — something white and soft. Death drew back and gasped. “Viktor!”

The rabbit, who had tackled the former Horseman with a fierce hug, pulled away and grinned. “I knew you’d come.”

Death drew him back for another hug. “I didn’t think I would, but here I am.”

The Lamb of God gave them a warm smile. “It seems I have given you two the happy ending you’ve wanted.”

“I would not have it any other way, Lord.” Hell seemed nothing more than a bad memory now. Death felt he could burst, overjoyed to know that he was given another chance, that his hope and faith bore fruit. Fruit he had shared with his fellow Horsemen.

Viktor clasped his friend’s hoof with both paws. “Come on, let’s go slay a dragon together.”

 

* * *

Originally published in ROAR, Volume 8

About the Author

Allison Thai is a specialist in pediatric anesthesia. When she isn’t taking care of kids during surgeries, she eats up books and video games, always hungry for the next good one. Her critter-centric fiction has been published in Podcastle, Anathema, Zooscape, and ROAR, and was featured on Tor and Locus recommended lists.

Categories: Stories

What Little Remains

Tue 15 Aug 2023 - 03:03

by Mercy Morbid

“It’s like I’m using my limbs for something they weren’t designed for, and while it isn’t at all painful, the urge to swim remains in my body like a dull ache.”

The ruins rose out of the water, a line of steel and concrete skeletons piercing the horizon. I sat on the front deck, listening to the whir of the hovercraft engine, my goggles around my neck. The wind stirred my hair into a frenzy and sprayed me with drops of ocean water. As they slid down my gray skin and hit my gills, I felt a rush of excitement. I wanted to swim, needed to swim. I was made for it, a shark chimera with a body designed for hydrodynamics.

Patience, I told myself. You’ll get in the water very soon.

As the ruins grew closer, my patience wore down little by little. The anticipation that comes before swimming is a drive I can’t really explain to terrestrials. Although I can live on land as easily as in the water, walking doesn’t feel as natural to me. It’s like I’m using my limbs for something they weren’t designed for, and while it isn’t at all painful, the urge to swim remains in my body like a dull ache.

Soon the hovercraft had entered the sunken ruins, the remnants of an old Terran metropolis called Boston. It slowed to a halt just above the target area. I had gone salvage diving in this area once before, and I felt certain there was still more to find under the waves. Sera, my dive assistant, came out from the back of the craft. The purple-haired squirrel held a tablet and a stylus. She had just finished checking off the pre-dive requirements.

“Ready for another run?” she asked.

I grinned, showing off my sharp teeth. “You have no idea,” I said.

“Are you sure you wanna do this dive unarmed?” she asked. “There could still be some pre-collapse security measures we don’t know about.”

“This was a tourist district,” I retorted.

“Marina,” Sera admonished.

I sighed.  “Fine,” I grumbled, relenting. “Hand me that harpoon pistol.” She did, and I clipped it to my dive belt. “I still think you’re mothering me too much – ah!” I gasped as she gave my snout a gentle stroke.

“I just want you to be safe, babe,” she cooed.

I put my hand on top of hers. “I know,” I said, “And I will be.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” She smiled, and I smiled back, releasing her hand and letting it fall.

“Good luck down there,” said Sera.

I grinned. “Luck? Pfft,” I said, putting my goggles on. “I was born to do this.” And with that, I turned around and did a running dive off the side of the hovercraft. The cool saltwater enveloped me like the arms of an old lover. I took a couple of warmup strokes as my gills opened up and my eyes adjusted to the low light of the depths. I was home. Time to get to work.

I swam to the building I had marked as my target at the briefing. Recon had identified it as an old hotel. There was an open window on the fifth floor that looked like a possible entry point. I swam down to it and surveyed the area. No external security devices present. Sticking my head in the window, I looked back and forth around the floor. Moldy carpets, warped wooden doors and barnacle-encrusted walls filled my field of vision, but again I found no signs of any security countermeasures. The coast, for lack of a better term, was clear.

I swam into the hallway and began to try the various doors to see which ones opened. As it turned out, the locks on a good number of them had rusted shut, but one door had been left slightly ajar. I swam up to it and peered through the tiny opening. There was a red light inside the room, pointed directly at the door. Without warning, it blinked.

“Is someone there?” asked a waterlogged, hissing, electronic voice.

My mind instantly went to my training, facing down submersible drones in target practice, and to Sera’s face as she begged me to be careful before my dive. I drew my harpoon pistol from its holster and waited, my finger on the trigger. When the light blinked again, I kicked open the door, took aim, and fired the harpoon straight into the eye of a moldy, animatronic teddy bear.

The poor toy that I ruthlessly murdered whirred as its motors ground to a halt before turning off for good. Bubbles escaped my mouth as I sighed in relief, mentally admonishing myself for being so trigger-happy and glad that the teddy bear was neither a security drone nor another diver. With the imaginary threat neutralized, I swam into the room and took a look around.

The furniture was waterlogged and encrusted with barnacles, much like the rest of the building. The television was rusted, the screen warped and clouded by its long submergence in the briny depths. The drawers of the dresser were open and empty, and one had even fallen out of its enclosure. It appeared as though whomever had last stayed in this room had left in a hurry.

As I scanned the orphaned dresser drawers, a metallic glint caught my eye. Swimming over, I saw a rusted, heart-shaped locket tucked in a corner of one drawer. I picked it up, and was astonished to find that the latch seemed to be in good condition. I opened it and gasped at the contents. Inside was a picture of three humans. Two of them, both adults, were hugging a young child. The child held a teddy bear, which appeared to be waving at the camera. The photo must have been waterproofed quite well, as it was neither warped nor faded.

I floated there with the locket in hand, staring at the photo in shock. Humans had only ever been theoretical to me, a snapshot of the history that predated the collapse of the Terran ecosystem. My own DNA was descended from theirs, the result of a centuries old bioengineering project that produced the chimeras. We had inherited the works of our human ancestors, but no one yet lived who had seen a human outside of history class.

I wondered what had become of the family. What were their lives like? Did they come here on vacation? Did they escape the collapse? Did they die screaming in a climate catastrophe? Possible answers swirled in my mind as I stared at the locket.

I surfaced sometime later with a pack full of old tech, which I handed off to Sera before climbing aboard the hovercraft. Sera took a brief look inside the bag.

“Why do you have a teddy bear in here?” she asked.

“It’s animatronic and still functions. I bet it has a fusion battery inside. Might still be good for a few centuries.”

“Why does it have a harpoon in its eye?”

“It snuck up on me.”

“Uh huh.” Sera shot me a quizzical look. “What have you got on your neck?”

I touched the locket gingerly with a free hand. “A memento,” I said.

Sera opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, and simply shrugged.

Sera went back into the cabin, placing the salvage on a table inside. I followed behind her. Sera took the pilot seat and began prepping for the ride back to the salvage platform. Soon we were on our way, and there was nothing left for me to do but catalog the salvage and see what, if anything, was usable. That is our job, and the reason I dive. We have lost so much to the waves of time and history. We must salvage what little remains if we want to build a future.

 

* * *

About the Author

Mercy Morbid is a pixel artist, speculative fiction writer, and Vtuber from Northeast Ohio. She enjoys tabletop roleplaying games, books with queer characters, and the blood of the living. When she is not writing, she is often found posting her thoughts and ideas on Twitter (@MercyMorbid). She would be very happy if you read them.

Categories: Stories

The Four Sharks of the Apocalypse

Tue 15 Aug 2023 - 03:02

by Tessa Yang

“My unsightly and unlovable brethren, hide your shame no longer. Let us engage in a glorious contest to determine who will be crowned the Greatest Freak of All Time!”

Revelation 6:17: “The great day of their anger has come, and who can survive it?”

 

Bull

All hail your new lord and conqueror: Bull Shark rises from the ocean with a crown of barnacles on its head, ready to haul you landlubbers back to the steaming seas whence all things good and evil were born.

If you’d had to name your fishy overlord, this would not have been your first guess, but keep that thought to yourself. To mouth the words Great White Shark is to hasten your own demise. Bull Shark can be a little testy when it comes to mentions of its bigger, show-offy cousin with its stupid aerial displays.Master of saltwater and freshwater, it was only a matter of time before Bull Shark was promoted to other realms. See it tear through the skies like a pterodactyl. Feel the reverberations as it bombs sinkholes into the earth. Trees whisper of its coming through their mycelia networks. They say no harpoon or bullet or net can destroy it, for Bull Shark is invincible with righteous purpose. It’s armored in the rage of a hundred million sharks caught in a hundred million fishing nets, finned and flung overboard to die of suffocation.

Bull Shark balloons. It beats its tail and tsunamis swell in answer. Creatures bow or flee before its indisputable might. Its presence has the feel of an ending, the ending. Not even the trees are asking what comes next.

 

Goblin

Goblin Shark tires of appearing on your listicles.

14 Ocean Freaks You Didn’t Know Existed

Top 10 Sea Monsters to Haunt Your Dreams

Weirdest Fish

Creepiest Fish

There’s only so much any of us can take before we snap.

The ocean is the world’s biggest empath. She spreads her feelers inland beyond the brackish mouths of estuaries, into rivers and streams, the backyard creeks where crayfish wander. Goblin Shark is tuned into these frequencies. The electroreceptors on its toothy snout reach out. From the lightless seafloor, it broadcasts a message in a voice that is like the belching of a thousand undersea volcanoes:

“Come, my naked mole rats! Come, Goliath bird-eaters and vampire squids, giant hornets and leaf-nosed bats! My unsightly and unlovable brethren, hide your shame no longer. Let us engage in a glorious contest to determine who will be crowned the Greatest Freak of All Time!”

And so Earth’s ugliest creatures haul themselves from nests and burrows. Scaly bodies unwind. Furry legs flex and scuttle. Cautious at first, half-blinded by the sun, their limitations soon evaporate thanks to the wizardry of Goblin Shark — part fairy godmother, part referee. The battle that follows spans biomes. From the tallest mountains to the deepest grottos, the planet seethes with the frenzy of wrestling tentacles and slashing fangs.

Goblin Shark surveys the carnage with satisfaction. It has never seen anything so beautiful.

 

Tiger

Tiger Shark’s appetite precedes it. Famous devourer of squids, turtles, birds, porpoises, nails, tires, cans, boots, cameras, license plates, a fur coat that one time — but what becomes of the ocean’s garbage can when the ocean is a garbage can?Has it ever occurred to you that Tiger Shark doesn’t want to eat all that trash?You can have it back. It was yours to begin with. Tiger Shark was only borrowing. Thus commences the great purge, centuries of refuse boiling up the ocean’s throat, a maelstrom collecting junk from the bottom of the sea and spewing it back on land where it belongs. Bang. A refrigerator door. Crash. A sunken oil rig. Wham. An Ohio-sized web of nylon fishing nets.

A soundless rain of cigarette butts, dancing prettily on the wind.

Transport halts. Crops wilt and languish under the toxic barrage. What was already happening in some places is now happening everyplace, because above all, Tiger Shark is committed to fairness. No more looking away. No more sending your trash to the other side of the world where for all you know, a benign sorceress waves her wand and poofs it out of existence.

Seek shelter, ideally underground. This could take a while. Tiger Shark has been swallowing your shit for a long time.

 

Greenland

Even by arctic standards, Greenland Shark moves slowly, dragging its ponderous body through the whipping currents of space-time. Its solemn duty is to review the labors of its younger kin — even if it would much rather be drifting beneath the ice contemplating the universe’s greatest questions, or snacking on snoozing cephalopods. You’ve seen one apocalypse, you’ve seen them all.

The party’s nearly over by the time Greenland Shark arrives. Bull Shark belly-flops onto an archipelago, flattening it into the sea. Goblin Shark eggs on an army of elephant seals. Tiger Shark, finally depleted, naps contentedly in tropical shallows, reduced to a speckled pup beneath red-lit skies.

Greenland Shark takes in all of this with one left-to-right sweep of its milky eyes. Its memory soars back through the centuries, through the millennia, to the moment when water vapor condensed and plummeted earthward, and bacteria gushed forth oxygen, and hard-shelled organisms filled the infant seas, and fish came, and shed fins for limbs, and inched timidly onto land. The stars were old even then, but they seemed new, so new, spearing the sky with barbs of blistering brightness.

Now the lights of heaven shudder and sift downward like a shower of marine snow, stirred by shifting currents. The universe searches for its new form. To know what this might be is beyond the pay grade of Bull Shark, Goblin Shark, and Tiger Shark, and if the oldest and wisest among them has any inkling, it does not yet speak on the matter.

“It is good,” declares Greenland Shark, and descends back into the frigid depths to digest a polar bear carcass.

 

* * *

About the Author

Tessa Yang is a fiction writer and shark enthusiast from upstate New York. She is the author of the speculative short story collection The Runaway Restaurant (7.13 Books, 2022). Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, CRAFT, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. Find her online at www.tessayang.com, or on Twitter: @ThePtessadactyl.

Categories: Stories

What Dark Plutonian Horror Beckons from the Shadows?

Tue 15 Aug 2023 - 03:02

by Christopher Blake

“His foolish generosity only feeds my terrible strength.”

We shadows can be anything: the monster under the bed, the robber, the ghost, the serial killer.  I trained in the darkest nether pits, and now that I’m out, it’s my turn to put the boogie in bogeyman, the knight in nightmare.

I coalesce in a dank alley: overturned garbage bins and faded graffiti stained yellow by sodium lights. A textbook shadowhaunt. Blue neon flickers from a diner across the street.  I skulk behind a dumpster, flitting through various hideous and crepuscular forms, listening for a victim.

Faint footfalls echo along the windblown street and I watch a man in jacket and toque hunch against the cold, striding through cones of streetlight.

“Psst,” I say, though it’s not what he hears. He hears whatever his brain’s disposed to hear. But I’ve chosen the setting, primed his mind for fathomless fear.  And now his subconscious will give me shape.

He stops, then takes a step forward. He makes a clicking sound with his tongue.

“Here boy,” he says.

He stretches out a hand, then reaches into a paper bag he’s carrying. He breaks off a piece of hamburger and holds it out.

I sniff the air and emerge into the light.

The new form his subconscious grants me has black fur, whetted teeth, and fearsome claws.  A noble mien of shadowstuff.  I surge forward and leap at the man, ready to tear him apart, but my new jaws seek only the proffered meat.

“Oh, good boy,” he says, struggling to speak as I lap at his face.

“Heck,” he says, holding out the rest of the burger. “Have it all.  You labs are voracious.”

I snarf the burger (displaying dominance) and he checks my neck, looking for a collar that isn’t there.

“You have a home, boy?”

I whine.

Menacingly.

He looks up and down the street, as if offering the universe one last chance to keep me.

“Well, you do now,” he says. “Let’s go, buddy.”

We walk side by side through quiet midnight streets. He whistles as he walks, a pleasant melody.  Whistling by the graveyard, no doubt.

Good.

He’s terrified already.

As well he should be.

He lets me into a basement apartment, the sort of place that should be depressing. It isn’t much: short window-wells and damp floors. But his spirit lives on the walls in movie posters and horror novels, and I feel, curiously, at home.

He goes into the tiny kitchenette and fills a bowl with water.  Then he opens the fridge and dumps some leftover ground meat into another bowl labeled “Rufus.”

“Little midnight snack,” he says, stroking my coat.  “Lots of leftovers these days.  Haven’t quite got used to cooking for one, yet.  Keep picturing old Rufus waiting around every corner.”

I try to resist, but the meat smells delicious, and I scarf it down in a couple bites.  No matter.  His foolish generosity only feeds my terrible strength.

The man laughs and scratches behind my ears.

“Alright boy, let’s hit the hay.”

He flips down the back of his futon and throws a pillow and a comforter on top, then strips to his boxers and crawls under the covers. He pats the mattress and whistles for me to jump up.

After a few minutes, he falls asleep, his gentle snores filling the small room.  I loom over his sleeping form, my slobbering maw quivering.

Now is my chance, a textbook opportunity to terrify.

But it’s been a long night, and I’m tired.  And, if I earn his trust now, my brutal betrayal will traumatize him all the more.  Yes, that’s it.  I’ll bide my time for one more night, then strike when he least expects it.

But for now the futon just looks…

So…

So cozy…

Next I know, I’m cuddling against him, warm morning sunlight bathing us both.  I lay alongside him (no doubt siphoning his body heat), listening as his chest rises and falls.  He looks so innocent and sweet.  It’s almost a shame that I must inundate him with unspeakable horror.

Almost.

But he gets up and scoops out an old tin of dog food from the cupboard.  I devour it voraciously while he eats a slice of toast.  He throws me something that looks like a bone, and I gnaw ominously at what I conclude to be the hardened skin of a dead animal.  It is incredibly satisfying.

Afterwards, we go to a dog park, and he throws a ball for me to chase.  At first, I look down upon this childish pursuit, but soon I am running and leaping through the air, retrieving the ball for him to throw again and again.  After a while, I lose track of time.  All I know is that we play so long my tongue almost gets tired from lolling.

Almost.

On the way home, he waits patiently, humming to himself as I urinate on various telephone poles and fire hydrants.

Later that night, we curl up on the futon.  He strokes my head as he watches the TV flicker, holding out the last of his vanilla ice cream for me to lick.

And then he falls asleep, and I sit, surveying him.

I am a shadowthing.  The best of the worst.  Now is the time to terrify.

But I watch his mouth puff a gentle breath, and see his eyes below their lids flicker to the infinitely mutable shadowshow of dreams.

And the thing inside my chest that has beaten all day, always faster when he’s near, beats faster again as I remember at last that we shadows can be anything.

We can be man’s worst nightmare.

We can be man’s best friend.

 

* * *

About the Author

Christopher Blake is a physician by day and a writer by night. He is a dad (cat and human), by his back of the napkin calculations, approximately 32 hours a day. His short fiction has appeared in Galaxy’s Edge, Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, and Stupefying Stories.

Categories: Stories

A Strange and Terrible Wonder

Tue 15 Aug 2023 - 03:01

by Katie McIvor

“The driver knows the place: the secret beach where, once a year, the dogs of myth take their outing.”

The dog bus makes its rounds once a year through the lands of myth. Starting in the north, in the early morning – so early it’s barely yet light – the bus rolls up to a middle-of-nowhere sign by the roadside. In the misty grey dawn, in the shadow of the hill which mounts into blackness above, the Cù Sìth is waiting. Its haunches twitch on the wet grass.

As the bus approaches, the Cù Sìth emits three sharp, haunting barks, which for miles around cause children to wake from their sleep and huddle in their blankets, sheltering their heads beneath the safety of pillows.

The door wheezes open. Onto the first step come the Cù Sìth’s paws. The smell of stagnant water precedes it. Up close, the dog’s fur is a dark, bog-like green, the colours of the endless moor. Its eyes burn with a spectral gleam. The driver nods hello, and with a whine the Cù Sìth bumps its nose up into his hand. Its claws click on the vinyl as it makes its way down the aisle.

The bus drives on. Headlights smothered by the moorland fog, it creeps south. The grey city grows around it. In the kirkyard, its tiny shape lost in the deep, gravestone gloom, a terrier wags its tail. When the doors open, it springs up into the bus and leaps into the driver’s arms, licking his face with a small, ghostlike tongue.

“Away with you, Bobby,” says the driver, but his eyes are smiling.

Bobby avoids the steaming, bull-sized bulk of the Cù Sìth. He sits up front, just behind the driver, his tiny paws against the window.

They continue south. On a lonely road in Northumberland, a huge black creature waits with its front leg extended: the Gytrash, foe of solitary travellers. Heading westwards and then down the M6, they stop to collect the phantom Moddey Dhoo, fresh off the ferry from Douglas. The new passengers sit aloof from one another, each taking up a double seat, curled like enormous, matted cats. Bobby’s wary eyes flit between them.

Wales is slate-grey with rain. Halfway down the tree-lined slope of the Nant y Garth Pass, a shuddering howl halts the bus, and the Gwyllgi, the Cŵn Annwn, dog of the Otherworld, comes aboard. The driver chucks it absentmindedly under the chin. In its wake, a small, bouncing shape appears: a corgi, with her fairy rider perched side-saddle. The fairy flies up to hand her fare to the driver, but he knows better than to accept coin from the fair folk.

Back into England, and on through miles of dull motorway. They stop at a service station somewhere near Wolverhampton. At this strange, perpetual dawn hour, only red-eyed lorry drivers peer from their curtained cabs, and they think nothing of the procession of phantom hounds which crosses the tarmac to pee on the litter-flecked grass and drink, one by one, from the dirty metal water bowl.

The next stop is a cold, dark little church where the wind shrieks through the branches of yew trees. The church grim trots out, stretching his hind legs. He greets the Gytrash politely, nose to nose, for they are old comrades. The others he ignores.

Black Shuck has roamed to the very edge of his eastern domain to catch the bus. Giant head raised, steam spouting from his nostrils in the cold, deathly air, he climbs aboard. The driver feels a chill pass over him, as though of footsteps over his grave, but he pats Black Shuck on the head all the same, though he has to reach up from his chair to do it. Black Shuck’s glowing eyes soften to a pale, almost pleasant yellow beneath the strip lights. He takes his seat across the aisle from the Cù Sìth, whose bog-damp fur gives off an odour that is comforting to him, reminiscent of the Norfolk Broads.

The streets of London are ghostly at this hour, abandoned even by the drunks. At 31 Kensington Park Gardens, a large Newfoundland waits patiently by the gate, her three floating charges in tow. The children whoop with excitement as they board, causing the corgi to leap up with an ear-splitting bark and bound into the air, trying to nip their ankles. The fairy, dislodged from her nap, yanks on the corgi’s reins, while Nana herds the children back to the front of the bus and sits them down in an orderly manner.

Moving through the south-west, they collect the Devil’s Dandy Dogs, fresh from a night-time hunt, and the cowed, scavenging mutts of the Camelot kitchens. Then the bus, now nearly full, jolts up onto Dartmoor, where awaits the most fearsome hound of all: the slavering beast of the Grimpen Mire. Its great jaws drool misty vapour as it slinks up the aisle of the bus.

They descend towards the coast. The driver knows the place: the secret beach where, once a year, the dogs of myth take their outing. Despite the long drive, dawn has just broken by the time they arrive. The beach is long, perfect, empty of the picnickers and holidaymakers who will soon swarm its picture-postcard dunes. They have the place to themselves.

The interior of the bus trembles with energy. The dogs sit poised and upright, only the intense wagging of tails betraying their eagerness. When the doors slide open, the excitable corgi is the first to tumble down the steps, her fairy rider cursing and hauling ineffectively at the reins. The Camelot mutts are right behind her. They writhe and trip over one another in a tangle of hairy legs, while the Devil’s Dandy Dogs snap at their tails. Next come the Gytrash and the church grim, at a stately pace, shoulder to shoulder. Black Shuck and the Cù Sìth follow. The Gwyllgi and the Moddey Dhoo skulk after them, glancing over their shoulders at the Dartmoor Hound, which paces lone and panther-like from the back of the bus. Lastly, Nana shepherds her three children down the steps, and only Bobby is left, polite and patient as always, waiting for the driver. The old man and his old dog walk the path to the beach side by side.

The sand shines primrose-yellow in the sunlight. Deep-clawed prints race to the shore, where a cacophony of splashing, leaping, and barking unfolds in the shallows. The Camelot hounds coat their skinny bodies in sand, eyes rolling with delight, while the Devil’s Dandy Dogs take off as one in pursuit of a seagull. The corgi is a frantic, cannonballing blur, her thick fur soaked, her fairy rider laughing through the saltwater spray. Even the deathly dogs, the portents of the underworld, frolic for all they are worth in the sea and pass a red rubber ball from jaw to dripping jaw. The Dartmoor Hound, overcome with sudden excitement, takes off and races its own long shadow from one end of the beach to the other.

On the dunes, Bobby and his owner sit and watch the sunrise. They are quiet with each other, after all these years. The old man rests his hand on Bobby’s wiry fur. The soft sand feels kind beneath their stiff limbs. A little way below them, her tongue lolling contentedly, Nana oversees the construction of a sandcastle.

The sun begins to lift into the sky as the day draws on, and the shadows shorten. The Moddey Dhoo solidifies in the brightness, no longer ethereal, nothing but a large spaniel splashing delightedly in the surf. Black Shuck, with his wolfish fur slicked into spikes, could be any oversized black dog, the Gwyllgi any capering mastiff. Even the Cù Sìth, although the height of a horse and the colour of submerged moss, might be mistaken for a family pet as it barks and frisks on the wet sand. Duties forgotten, for this one day of the year, they are free.

As the holidaymakers begin to appear over the crest of the dunes, the bus driver whistles to his pack. One after another, the dogs of legend shake water from their coats and trot up the beach towards him, panting and laughing. The corgi plants sopping paws on the driver’s knees, and the Dartmoor Hound, in a fit of exuberance, surges up to lick his weathered cheek. But to old Bobby, who waited for fourteen years by a grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the scene is already a dream. He lies fast asleep and smiling in his master’s arms as the mythical pack piles back onto the bus.

 

* * *

About the Author

Katie McIvor is a Scottish writer and library assistant. She studied at the University of Cambridge and now lives in England with her husband and two dogs. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The DeadlandsUnchartedInterzone, and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated anthology Mother: Tales of Love and Terror, and her three-story collection is out now with Ram Eye Press. You can find her on Twitter at @_McKatie_ or on her website at https://katiemcivor.com/.

Categories: Stories

How Pepper Learned Magic

Tue 15 Aug 2023 - 03:00

by Renee Carter Hall

“They said I was going to be an abracadabra dog.”

“Abracadabra,” I whispered, trying to keep my tail from wagging in excitement. I didn’t want to make a bad impression on my first day.

“What are you on about?” the grizzled German shepherd muttered next to me.

“Just— you know. The job.”

“Right.” He gave me a sniff and sighed. “Puppies. They’re sending puppies now.”

I was not a puppy; I was a fully grown Labrador. But again, first impressions. I managed to quiet my tail.

I had already been disappointed that my training hadn’t included any magic tricks. I’d expected to hop into boxes to be sawed in half, or maybe to disappear behind a sparkly curtain. So far it had just been a lot of sniffing for things, but maybe that would change today. Did humans do magic shows in the woods? I sure hoped so. Maybe I would even get my own cape.

It didn’t start off very promising. In fact, it felt just like training. We were given the usual command and started searching. I did my best to calm down and focus, and soon enough I found the scent—faint at first, but there. I loped toward it, pulling my person along. Something had disappeared and I was going to make it reappear, because I was a magic dog. They’d said so.

And then I found it, and I knew I was supposed to sit, but I couldn’t help it. I dug joyously through leaves and soil and muck. I had found it. I was doing it. I had found—

A person. I had found a person.

Who wasn’t moving.

Who smelled like dead things.

Who was flesh and bone and hair and not all in the same place.

I staggered back.

I sat.

My person was happy with me. They were acting just like they had in training when I did the right thing. In all those hours, all those sprayed scents, how had I never realized what I’d been smelling?

The German shepherd was next to me. “Good job, pup.”

I didn’t answer.

“Something wrong?”

“When do we do the magic?” I whispered.

“The what?”

They were covering what I’d found, getting ready to carry it away. It made it a little easier to talk.

“They said I was going to be an abracadabra dog.”

The German shepherd stared at me, first in confusion, then with contempt, and then with something like pity. “The word,” he said finally, “is cadaver. Meaning, a dead human.” He sighed and looked away, sagging a little. “You poor dumb thing.”

That was my first day.

I never saw the German shepherd after that; I guess from then on they trusted me to work alone. And I was good. There was no doubt about that. I found bodies in woods and water, newly dead and months gone, old and young. I climbed through cinderblock rubble and storm-twisted trees. But even when I could eventually feel satisfaction at my person’s praise, there was a part of me that stayed numb, and still angry at my silly pup self for having expected something more.

That changed in another forest, on a wet October day. I was following the scent, professionally ignoring both squirrels and chipmunks. This scent was young, very young, and everyone around me seemed particularly distressed, but I did my job. My person praised me after, as they always did.

Then one of the others said something to my person. A question. My person hesitated and said something back, and then the other human approached me, hand out.

I sniffed, and his scent was familiar. It was an echo of the scent I’d just found. He scratched behind my ears, and I wagged my tail a little so he knew it was okay. And then he was kneeling, in the leaves and the mud, his arms around me, his face against my wet coat, holding me tight.

“Thank you,” he said into my fur. “We can take him home now.”

I thought he would let go of me then, but he hugged me tighter, shaking. I licked his face and tasted salt.

And I began to understand.

It isn’t the magic I thought it would be. No tricks, no stage, no cape. But what I can do is bigger and more powerful than I ever imagined that first day. It’s the difference between a question and an answer. The difference between a wound and a scar.

I’d like to tell that old German shepherd that he was right, and he was wrong. He was right about the word, but he was wrong about me.

My name is Pepper. I’m a fully grown Labrador.

And I am a magic dog.

 

* * *

About the Author

Renee Carter Hall writes fantasy and science fiction for kids, teens, and adults. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Strange Horizons and Podcastle, and her novels include the Cóyotl Award-winning young adult fantasy Huntress. She lives in West Virginia with her husband, their cat, and more books than she will ever have time to read. Readers can find her online at www.reneecarterhall.com.

Categories: Stories

Susurrus

Tue 15 Aug 2023 - 02:42

by Azure Arther

“Names were a thing that made no sense to Abernathy. He was a nightmare and nightmares were all the same, until they weren’t.”

The nightmare slurped the last drop of fear just as the man died. The essence was bitter, full of regret and sadness and the terror of not reaching the heights one had planned. It wasn’t his best meal, but the nightmare was eating just to eat at this point. He placed one hoof on the man’s head and pressed, tentatively at first, then with all the weight of a full grown pegasus. Heavy.

There was a satisfying crunch and the nightmare moved on. No necromancy would bring his enemies back to life. No god would return a favorite warrior to battle. The nightmare left nothing. He was the stallion of dread, the harbinger of fright. He was—

“Bernie!” a voice called from farther away, drawing the nightmare’s attention. He looked around the cluttered battlefield, where he and the girl had killed her enemies. His enemies now. Dead men lay in the grass, across each other, some caught in mid-run, others with sword in their hand. All of them wore the emblazoned livery of the king, but they were not soldiers. The wagon that had carried the mercenaries was on its side, its horses having run from—

“Bernie? Abernathy.” The girl’s voice was impatient as usual, laced with urgency, entitlement, no fear. The nightmare sighed and turned towards her. He tossed his mane, and flowed across the shadows on the ground, silken, pitch, a soft rustle that strikes fear in the middle of the night, when sleep has just barely claimed its due.

“Bernie!” Kyra was in front of him now. Her black leather pants glistened in places, someone else’s blood, but she was unharmed. There was no need for her to call him so urgently. She craned her neck to look up at him and stomped one foot.

“I know you heard me,” Kyra said. Abernathy chuffed her braids and spread his wings. Kyra rolled her eyes.

“Bernie…tone it down. Look.” She held up her hands. Nestled between her long, brown fingers was a kitten. The tiny beast hissed and recoiled in fear, spitting and scratching at Kyra until she let it go. It raced off.

“I just spent five minutes coaxing it from under the barn, Bern!” Kyra groaned.

Abernathy tapped one hoof on the ground and looked meaningfully at the bodies.

“Yes, I already took everything of value.”

He lay one ear back and clicked his teeth at her.

“Fine.” Kyra stomped over to the bodies, doing one last check. She was tiny in comparison to the corpses, and even though she was still a child, Abernathy knew she would not be much larger when she was fully grown. She found a few rings and a missed change purse, a belt buckle that could be sold, two good pairs of leather boots to be traded. Abernathy pressed his nose to a particularly warm cloak and coughed. Kyra frowned when he stared at her.

“Ugh. Then I have to wash it.”

Abernathy nodded his large head in agreement.

“You know all this stuff has to go on your back, right?”

Abernathy lowered his front legs, carefully bowing so that Kyra could load the bags on. She looked around the farm before anxiously looking back at him. “Do you think I should let the farm family know it’s okay to come out?’

Abernathy bared his teeth and Kyra nodded. “Okay.”

The nightmare whinnied softly, and Kyra nodded again. She climbed on his back and with a running leap, Abernathy shot into the sky, his wings unfurling. He felt the air, cold here, colder there, and finally, a warm updraft allowed him to glide. The magic that hid him from the humans would hide Kyra too. She bundled into the woolen cloak that smelled of man, lay across his neck, and went to sleep.

* * *

It was Kyra who named him. She was a small human at the time but had been with him for several of her human years at that point. For much of their first years together, she had called him “horse,” “Blackie,” “Wings,” and other things, but finally, she had decided he needed an actual and permanent name. Abernathy disagreed.

“You need a name,” she had indicated, her words careful and clipped, in the way speakers of foreign languages tend to overenunciate. Abernathy had given her speech in a dream, several dreams, many nights of patient fostering of human language that he had stolen from others. She spoke many of their dialects now, knew how to cook, how to maid to another human who felt they were superior to other humans, which wasn’t possible, and how to do a myriad of other things. Sometimes they were fanciful ideas, and others were necessary requirements, like how to bind a wound, and what herbs would keep it from festering.

But names. Names were a thing that made no sense to Abernathy. He was a nightmare and nightmares were all the same, until they weren’t.

Abernathy shook his head when she stated he needed one. She had already been named Kyra when they met. He assumed her parents provided her with the name. She did not need to name him, as well.

“Yes, you do. I am Kyra and this is my noble steed, the nightmare, does have a fancy ring to it. I agree with that.” Kyra was braiding her hair, sitting in the warm stable-like cave they called home. Half of the fluffy cloud of black, shiny strands stood up and out, coiled in places, straight in others, but the rest was deftly folding into neat cornrows. She changed her and, unfortunately, Abernathy’s hair often. “But you need a name I can call you, one that isn’t anyone’s but mine.”

Abernathy had shaken his head again, adding a firm stomp, an agitated tail swish, and a heavy snort, but Kyra had stood firm. “I’m going to call you Abernathy, like the great sage. Bernie for short.”

Thus, he acquired the name, and accepted it, as he accepted everything else that Kyra chose.

* * *

Abernathy paced when they landed outside Unan, and the marketplace Kyra was only allowed to go to thrice a year. They lived too close for people to see them too often. He tossed his head twice. The midafternoon sun provided excellent shadows for them to hide in, yet she insisted on entering the sunlight, to cross the field of bright green, into the town.

“I’ll be careful.” Kyra said, sliding from his back, her voice soothing, with a slight note of impatience, as usual. “I’m always careful.”

Abernathy shimmered to shadow, translucent, unseen by the regular human eye. Kyra glared at him.

“No. I don’t need you kicking down stalls and trampling people just because a vendor haggles too hard.”

Abernathy snorted and stomped a foot.

“You did too.”

He turned his head. It had only happened once.

“Just… stay here, Bernie, okay? I’ll be alright.” Kyra patted down the pockets of her pants, checked the weapons holster at her side, and hefted the bag. She called back as she walked away, “In and out. I’m going to grab some sugar and apples for you, some wool to make socks, and some brine for our salted meat. Winter is coming. Oh! And no overhead either! I’m fine.”

Abernathy watched from the trees as she crossed the meadow, a small hunter with her goods, as noble a carriage as any royal. He whinnied softly as she walked away and tossed his head. Kyra was nothing more than a foal in many ways, a child in comparison to the youngest of nightmares. And humans were cruel.

The nightmare pawed the ground and paced for what felt like hours, but Kyra didn’t return. Finally, he shimmered completely, spread his wings, and launched into the air above the marketplace. She wouldn’t know if he had been overhead. He wouldn’t dive into the middle of the market this time. He wouldn’t upset Kyra. He wouldn’t act like an irrational horse. He was a nightmare. Nightmares were not irrational.

But he couldn’t see through the tents and stalls and poking his head through the fabrics was exhausting and felt silly. He landed and crept through Unan. It could have been one of any of the larger towns that Abernathy and Kyra had been through. Low cottages with neat paint and yards sprawled across the grounds before the town wall with smaller and more squalid lodging just along the interior, in the shadows of the bricks that protected the city. Farther in were small houses, minor shops, leading to gardens and larger houses, a tavern, an inn. Past that was the town square, the marketplace.

People shivered as he passed; babies cried; small children watched him with wide eyes. One woman clutched her chest, her breath coming in gasps. “I need to get him to make sure the baby is alright.” A man stared at his partner with suspicion in his eyes. “You’re cheating me, aren’t you?” The marketplace dissolved into bickering and fear at his presence. He moved quickly, drawing in his influence as best he could, the power that made him a nightmare allowing him to walk through people if he chose, but Kyra told him not to do that. It made humans feel like someone had walked over their grave, or as if Death himself had touched them.

He whinnied low and waited. Only Kyra would hear him. He flicked his ears forward, listening. To the sides, listening. Back, when he didn’t hear her. He breathed in deep, checking for her scent. Kyra smelled like shadows and spice, human and horse. Kyra smelled like—

“Abernathy?” she hissed and the nightmare froze. Kyra was behind him, but she didn’t smell very much like Kyra. “I told you to wait.”

He turned to look at her. Her braids were coiled on top of her head, and she wore a gown. She had bathed.

He nickered at her softly and placed his head on her shoulder. She reached up to pat his nose and sighed. “Now you’re gonna have me looking like I’m talking to myself.”

Around them, the marketplace had reached a fever pitch of fear and one group of men had begun to argue loudly.

“Fly, Bernie. I’ll be there in a second.”

Abernathy huffed, pressed his hooves into the cobblestones, and leaped into the sky. Kyra looked up at him, her brown eyes solemn. She looked presentable, Abernathy noticed. The cream dress she wore complemented her brown skin, and she had a basket on her arm.

* * *

He found Kyra on a dark and stormy night, the best kind of night, when shadows feed well, and children huddle in their beds, when burly human men sneak glances over their shoulders. The herd Abernathy traveled with was feeding at a castle. Nightmares were known for their work with sleep and dreams, but they fed on fear, and fear could be found in many places. There were always nightmares at the healers, the apothecary, and definitely hanging around during conflict and hostilities.

The castle was in chaos, a civil dispute turned battle turned war. There had been a coup. People were dying, and the herd was eating well. Battles were waged in all corners of the palace, but victory was very clearly going to be with those who were taking over. One king or another. Someone’s cousin, someone else’s third stepbrother five times removed. Abernathy hadn’t cared. He flit through the walls, spreading a miasma of fear and defeat, feeding on the run for the joy of running. He tore through stone, his shape flashing in and out of solidity. A meld here, a solid there. Through a bed here, destroy a tapestry there. He was having fun.

Until he burst into a grain storage, and almost trampled a very small, elaborately dressed, obvious princess, crying over a dead maid. She had looked right at Abernathy, no fear coming from her, just solemn, red-rimmed brown eyes. Her hands clenched and unclenched into tiny fists. He had been startled by her. She wasn’t the first human to see him; Some could, a touch of the sight, a bit of fae blood generations removed, a magic object, but she was definitely one of the few to not lose her mind at the sight, to not be so overcome with terror that she tore her eyes out or her hair or banged her head on the floor, the wall, a sharp object. She walked over to him, tilting her head back, small fists on her hips as she bent her spine to look up, up, up at him.

Her face was heart-shaped, with a tiny, pointed chin, round cheeks and bowed lips. She touched his leg and leaned to the side to look at his back half. He followed her gaze and huffed. He was halfway in and halfway out the wall. With a snort, the nightmare walked completely into the room.

“I need to get away before they find me. Can you help me?”

He could have ignored her. He should have ignored her, but it was at that moment soldiers burst into the room, and the before-he-was-named Abernathy bared his teeth in rage. He raised up on his back legs and trampled the three men before they had a chance to recognize what was happening. When he finished, he turned to look at the tiny child. Her elaborate clothing was splattered with blood.

“Thank you.” Even the girl’s voice was even small. What did he know of small humans? But more voices sounded in the corridors.

“Find the princess.”

“First General says he stabbed her maid before she went through a secret passageway. They can’t be out of the palace.”

“She’s the only heir left.”

“Please?” the girl whispered, and the nightmare sighed. He leaned over, folding his front legs, and tilted a wing down for her to climb up. When she was on his back, he focused, shimmered, and enveloped them both in his magic.

* * *

“I told you to stay.” Kyra was angry, pacing. She huffed and stomped a foot.

Abernathy stared at her with placid eyes.

“You made things so much worse. I was trying to get some gossip. I needed to— Ugh.”

Abernathy nudged his nose into one of the bags Kyra had tossed. He gently closed his teeth on the gown and tugged it out of the bag.

“Stop, Bernie!” Kyra rushed to his side, wresting the gown away from him. Her voice was defensive. “I just wanted a bath. You make better barter when you’re not dressed like a ragamuffin scavenger.”

Abernathy tilted his head and chuffed. Kyra glared at him. He stomped a foot.

“Fine. I just wanted to be clean.”

Abernathy turned his head.

“Don’t act like that, Bern.”

He flattened his ears and lifted a hind leg off the ground.

“Oh, don’t be mad.” Kyra was silent before she finally spoke, her voice quiet and contemplative. “I just wanted to see what it felt like, okay? I’ve been with you since I was four. I’m seventeen, Abernathy, and we rarely ever talk to humans, and I saw that shop, and the lady was so nice…”

Abernathy whinnied, a bit shrill, and lowered his hind leg. He kept his ears flat and leaned over to snap his teeth near her face.

“Yes, she could have been an enemy, and I know that, but I don’t think so, Bernie.”

Abernathy blew out all the air in his lungs and unfurled his wings, raising them high and lowering them in a sharp snap.

“True. Surprises happen.” Kyra shrugged. “I would’ve been okay, Bern.”

Abernathy neighed, shrill and high-pitched.

“I said I’d be careful! I was careful!” Kyra stuffed the gown back into the bag and tossed them on Abernathy’s back. He bucked and knocked them off. “Oh, it’s like that, huh?”

Abernathy bared his teeth at her.

“Fine. I’ll walk home.” She picked the bags up, slung them over her shoulder and took off walking. Abernathy followed, seething. They hadn’t gotten far before he looked back, studying the trail Kyra left through the woods. He would need to remind her of nature walking when she slept. He caught up to her and bumped her shoulder with his and almost knocked her down. Kyra laughed.

“I win.” She affectionately rubbed the side of his face. “No more silent treatment.”

Abernathy blew his breath, a quick flap of his lips and Kyra giggled. She tossed the bags up and climbed on his back. He immediately vaulted into the sky, but his gaze remained down, watching the woods and the way they moved, as if someone were following a careful path through the trees. As if someone was following Kyra.

* * *

It wasn’t like Abernathy didn’t understand Kyra’s need for human company. Sometimes he left her to run with the herd. He couldn’t stay with them anymore, not with Kyra in tow. She wouldn’t have fared well in the shadow barn the nightmares lived in, fed, and served by a myriad of creatures who would consider Kyra a tasty morsel. But Abernathy could fend for himself, unlike the small human he fostered.

She frustrated him, but the annoying feeling in his chest, the thing called worry that he had never had before, that frustrated him even more. Which was why, while Kyra slept the day sleep, Abernathy paced the gloom outside their cave.

No humans had ever reached their hiding place. It was bathed in shadows, reinforced by Abernathy’s urine, the entrance hidden from sight. Yet, a human came. Abernathy could smell him, hear him, long before he broke the clearing. He was strong, younger than the usual mercenary. He smelled of spice, somewhat like Kyra, and had the same rich brown color of her skin. His hair was thick black ropes the size of Kyra’s thumb, neatly tied back with a leather thong. He smelled faintly of apprehension, nothing like the usual human who neared his presence.

Abernathy pushed the scent of fear out and tilted his head, waiting for the man, boy really, not as young as Kyra, but not much older, to quake with trepidation. He didn’t.

“A—” The boy cleared his throat and looked around the clearing. He didn’t appear to see the entrance, but he obviously knew they were there. “Abernathy, sir?”

Abernathy paused. He looked back into the cave, at Kyra’s sleeping spot. She was sitting up, her brown eyes wide in the darkness. She hunched her shoulders and tossed her head at him. Abernathy stomped, shimmered, and stepped from the shadow of the door.

He silently walked towards the stranger and flared his wings before allowing the shimmer to fall. The boy gasped but didn’t run. Fear wafted from him in waves, but it wasn’t fear at the sight of Abernathy. The stranger bowed and Abernathy lowered his wings, curious.

“Hello, Abernathy, sir.” The boy cleared his throat and held up a fist of hemlock flowers. Only Kyra knew what a delight they were to him. “Hello, sir. I, sir. I—”

Abernathy stared at the boy.

“He wants to know if he can come with us.” Kyra said from behind and above them. The boy made a soft noise of protest. Both males looked up at her, standing on the ledge above the clearing. “Or, and Bernie, just hear me out, maybe I can stay in Unan.”

Abernathy bared his teeth at the boy and raised a hind leg. Kyra scrambled down to throw herself in front of the stranger.

“This is Jonah. We’ve been friends for years.”

Abernathy stomped his back foot down and walked away into the cave. He nuzzled his head into one of the bags and pulled out the dress, careful not to drag it when he returned. Kyra’s face flushed when she saw what he had brought.

“Fine. Yes. The dress was for Jonah.” She threw her hands up. She snatched the gown and shoved it into Jonah’s arms. Jonah watched their exchange with wonder on his face, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open. Abernathy snapped his teeth at the boy, causing him to flinch and stumble back.

“Stop, Bernie. It’s not his fault.” Kyra rubbed Abernathy’s chest and wrapped her arms as far around him as she could. “I’m sorry I lied.”

Abernathy chuffed her braids, split in two, down to the middle of her back now, and glared at Jonah over her shoulder.

“I would take care of her, sir.”

Abernathy snorted and Kyra shoved him. “Be nice.”

She lay her head back on his chest and stayed there for a moment before whispering, “I need to be with humans, Bern.”

Abernathy raised his hind leg, slowly, his wings rising at the same time.

“I know you think it isn’t safe, but those mercenaries didn’t even recognize me, Bern.”

Abernathy tossed his head at Jonah.

“He doesn’t even know, Bernie. It’s been thirteen years. We hunt them more than they hunt us. You hunt them, anyway.”

Abernathy considered her words. Kyra had never hunted the king’s men in the way Abernathy had. Once he had decided she was his, he hunted down her enemies with a vengeance, sometimes with a group of nightmares, but often alone. Sometimes with Kyra with him, but often alone. Alone.

Abernathy backed away from Kyra, nodding his head, tucking his wings and ears.

“I’m not leaving you.” Kyra’s eyes glistened with tears. “You can stay here, and I’ll come visit, or you could pretend to be a real horse, or…”

“He can’t stay, Kyra,” Jonah said softly. “I saw what he did at the market. I’ve never heard of a nightmare attaching to a human, but… I’m not surprised.”

The boy smiled at Kyra, and Abernathy saw it, the fierceness that rested in Abernathy’s chest, the need to protect, the worry. Human love.

“I just… I won’t stay if you don’t want me to, Bernie. I’ll stay with you ” Kyra said, the tears beginning to fall. “I’ll stay with you.”

* * *

The nightmare hid in the shadows, watching the burnished light that came from the window of a cottage. He had killed two king’s men on the road, far from here. They could have been coming or going, or not even planning to stop, but he still hunted them, wherever they were, whenever he caught them. They were the only thing in the world that he feared. After they died, he came to check, to see.

Kyra opened the back door and looked out. Her hair was longer now, the braids tumbling into the small of her back, adorned with shells and beads and at least six strands of Abernathy’s hair. Jonah walked up behind her, his arm snaking around her waist and pregnant stomach. The boy had filled out, man now, strong and muscled. At night, Abernathy fed him dreams of battle training, fighting styles, weapons knowledge, and other things he felt he needed to watch the nightmare’s little girl. To watch Kyra.

And the other two.

A child, a little girl of around four, wriggled past her parents to run into the darkness, giggling. She made a beeline for Abernathy. From the doorway, Kyra shook her head.

“Don’t keep her out too late, Bernie.”

“Up, Bern. Up?” The little girl reached, dancing at his side on bare feet, waiting for Abernathy to lower a wing. He did and the child climbed up, grasping tight fists of his mane until she was settled between his wings. She giggled again and Jonah smiled.

Abernathy stepped out of the shadows, a slight rustling, a chill on the wind, a nightmare with a little girl on his back. They were dangerous. He tossed his head and whickered softly at the girl’s parents; then he shimmered and took a running leap for the sky, his gallop into the air punctuated by a child’s high-pitched squeals of glee.

 

* * *

About the Author

A Flint, MI native and Dallas transplant, Azure Arther has been obsessed with literature since she was a child. She has found that her passion is evenly distributed between writing, teaching and reading books with her son. Her short stories and poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in nearly two dozen publications, including Midnight & IndigoAurealisAndromeda Spaceways, and a winning story in Writers of the Future, vol. 38. She is a college professor, a playwright who dabbles in surrealism and fantasy, and a children’s author. Her website is azurearther.com.

Categories: Stories

Overly Familiar Familiars

Sat 15 Apr 2023 - 10:28

by S. A. Cole

“We loved the witch and her child, yet did their clan not slash our trees and burn our nests? And with this cat familiar we had a peace. What if the witch daughter replaced this cat with a snake?”

Downlings and hatchlings crowd together and listen. This tale defines us, and no ice-black winter or nest murdering snake can take it from us.

In the long before, tales talk of the time when we corvids owned the hills, but scrabbled and clawed for each day of our lives. Endless snows and deep hunger in our shriveled bellies robbed nest after nest of life.

Then came the black tar road. It wound through the hills and we mistrusted the hot machines and the rotten smelling people inside. We gave them no gifts, and they gave us no succor.

After the road cooled and set its bones into the ground, your grandmother’s grandmother flew to find the end to the south and your grandfather’s grandfather flew to find the end to the north. We waited through summer heat, falling leaves, and huddled through the killing ice of winter. Neither scout returned. Having neither body nor feathers, we buried nothing more than their memories with the first rain after the thaw.

Then came the machines riding into our hills with shoots of too green grass and the twined white and purple blooms of the Tulip Poplars and Jane Magnolias. Monsters flattened and dug and crushed. Two of our egg laden nest trees slashed down with metal blades and burned. Our tears reflected the flames and dropped from our beaks over the blistered eggshells on the ground. Only three eggs remained tucked into nests, woven with bone brittle hope.

Picked bone clean, the humans built endless nests of pine and metal, liquid rock and dust where we had once lived. Bodies and machines swirled around until their thousand nests were finished and the humans left. Only our boldest went first, alighting on the eaves and singing a false song of bravery. Nothing emerged. And so with the carelessness of the young, the new nest-mates built homes in the eaves, and corners, above the windows, and enjoyed the safety from the winter-blooded snakes and dark minded foxes. Four eggs in our new sheltered nests.

“Looks like the birds moved in before us.” the man said. The first of many settling into the new homes.

Our hope burned as fast as our nesting trees when the man and woman arrived. Both young and lean, a desperate pair, they must have been to move to this built then abandoned place all alone. Their boxy metal machine spat endless things into the house, perhaps hoping to feed it like one of our young. Our flight gathered and chirped worried notes.

The youngest of us did the unthinkable. Bargained with the woman. On the sills, it left her worms. A gift swept away uneaten. Wings stretched wide, it sung her songs of love and shelter, flight and food. She braided her feather-dark hair and sung in tune with it. Why do I hide my glory? She sang with me hatchlings.

I knew her for a witch, just like the oldest of our tales. My gifts were rarely acknowledged, and so instead of stones and worms, I brought her things a witch might need. The downy feathers cast off by our young, a mouse’s tail, glimmering rocks, cold metal coins lost by the tide of humans moving into the new built homesteads as my witch settled into her own. The last gift I brought was the one that sealed our fates together. I laid it on the table behind their house as both man and woman drank steaming cups of black liquid. And together they saw I had brought them two blue lines ensconced in a plastic tube. Three seasons later, the witch daughter was born.

Now you know why they call me stork, even though my feathers are the same black as yours, hatchlings. The seasons turned to years, and we doted on the witch daughter and she doted on us. Our baths decorated the grass around the house, and they lay food out for us, specially concealed from devious squirrels in a hanging red house, a never ending succor of dry figs and savory seeds. Our wings filled the sky again. Now the ice dark winter feared to creep into our nests.

As the seasons turned and returned and turned again, the witch daughter grew and took the witch’s duties. She laid out our food, and we gifted her all things a young witch might need. Metal coins, braided grass and flowers for her hair, beetles cleared from her carrot garden. Most of all, we gave her song, delighting in her smiles. Hatchlings never forget, just as darkness follows light, so too does sadness follow joy.

The witch daughter selected a familiar. A cat.

The beast was all horrid muscles, and silent malice. Of course, it was black like the winter nights thought long vanquished. It prowled through the leaves and underbrush during the day, waiting for us with its thin, flicking tail. Claws scratched at the bark of our nest trees, and only those nesting in the eaves of the house felt safe. I will not lie to you all. It took one of our young, no bigger than any of you downlings. How we wept as it presented its own twisted gift to the black-eyed witch daughter.

Her tears matched ours. She ran to the witch mother, and they scolded the cat with words. But we wished for fire, not words. We should have trusted them, and their magic. They broke the beast’s silence, wrapping its neck with a spell of fabric and a bright metal bell.

The seasons turned, and the cat did the unthinkable. It grew larger, coming into its paws and claws. But inside the silent malice and red stained claws, the beast had changed, perhaps learned. Though we could never speak to it, and it could never speak to us, there was an understanding. We were both important to the witch daughter. There was something of a peace, as thin as the space between waves on the beach, new, and eggshell fragile.

The cat laid in the bright summer sun on the day of its taking. The witch daughter trapped the beast in a brown box and together with the witch mother took it into their car. Scouts followed them to a building, which must have been a temple of their magic, marked on the outside with pictures of not only cats but also dogs. The temple’s inscription had many human letters, but the important ones you must know I will draw.

Small Animal Hospital

Like the sand and the sun and the wind, remember these markings.

When the cat returned, it was a changed thing. Instead of the sack that made it like a man, it was like us. We sang songs of praise and taunted the enemy, but it felt hollow to me. The cat grew weak and mewling. Its wound swelled and reddened. When the witch daughter came for the cat, brown box in hand, the beast only weakly mewed. Its limbs splayed out softly toward the ground. The box closed around it and perhaps in my heart I worried for it. Yes, it had our clan’s blood on its claws, but youth is rarely without regret. We loved the witch and her child, yet did their clan not slash our trees and burn our nests? And with this cat familiar we had a peace. What if the witch daughter replaced this cat with a snake?

Again, our scouts followed them to the Small Animal Hospital. They waited to see what would become of the cat, but the witch and the witch daughter returned alone. Others celebrated, though their joy was a hollow and nervous thing. Would there be a new cat when we woke? Day and nights passed, hatching-slow. Our feed was forgotten by the witch and the witch daughter. Hunger returned to our fat bellies with a dangerous edge we had forgotten.

The sudden weakness of our demesne did not go unnoticed. Newly bold mice scurried around the margins of our lives and the witch’s nest, carrying in and out food and mites, the dirty mammals. We hate them but only out of habit, fellows that race our beaks for scarce food.

On the fourth night of the cat’s absence, the snake slithered over the border fence and into our space. We squawked and shrieked, but to no avail. Snake ears feed on our screams and the crushing sounds of our bones and eggs.

On the fifth night, the snake emptied one of our nests, curling into the straw and twigs and grass of our sacred home as it digested.

On the sixth night, the cat returned. Whole and hale, but loved and welcomed into the witch daughter’s house. Others felt this another devastation to our clan, but I trusted the witch and the witch daughter. And perhaps I was foolish enough to trust a cat. The snake, digestion of our nest’s bounty complete, slunk along the tree limb as the sun sunk and night came. The scaled body wrapped against the trunk, and then the ground, and then against another of our nest trees. Its cold body stretched slowly skyward, toward four of our eggs, as the sun’s first light broke into the yard.

The broken silence of the cat’s bell rang out thunder loud. Brave black paws padded to the snake and the two great beasts locked eyes.

Their fight was not brief or glorious, or silent. Blood and fur and scales cast off and laid on the ground until the snake sunk its fangs into the cat’s front leg. The cat bit back and claimed one of the snake’s eyes. The titans parted, but the cat was timid. This snake’s bite carried more than fangs. Poison coursed through the cat and weakened it. The fight was the snake’s, and the scaled malice knew it. The cat backed away but never let its eyes leave the snake. Arching its black back and bristling out its fur the cat hissed. Its feet lost confidence, and the snake slid closer, body warming in the sun. The cat knew it had lost, but it would take the snake’s life or die trying. It would repay its debt to us with the last moments of its life.

The snake raised up, mouth wide, only a wing span from the cat.

I fell from the sky like a hawk, claws out at the snake’s one good eye. The snake thrashed and spat and snarled. My claws had found their home, and the snake and I crashed together. The bones of my right wing crunched and broke. While I regret many things in my insignificant life, trading my flight for the snake’s eye, I cannot regret. Now you know why they call me ‘snake bane.’ My claws sunk deep and held the snake’s head.

The cat may have been weak but a blind and bound snake was little threat. The cat’s fangs sunk deep into the neck of the snake and it stopped thrashing.

The witch daughter must have heard the noise of our fight. She opened their nest door, saw the carnage, and greeted it with a scream, running back into the house. Time dragged between when she left and when she came again. The bones in my wing throbbed and burned like newly molted feathers. When she came back, the man joined her. He brought a shovel down on the dead snake, cleaving it in twain. But the cat was long gone, only its fur and blood still on the ground to show its valor.

The witch daughter cried, and her tears brought six days of rain. The snake’s body, shovel carried to the trash, deserved even less funeral rites.

Now this part of the story I did not see myself, but ask anyone and they will tell you its truth. A cat is a heavily muscled beast, but our clan’s wings are strong with fig and seed. Sixteen wings beating together carried the cat to the Small Animal Hospital. The raucous scene of people taking a cat from birds I can only imagine. Our pantomime, birds relaying the story of a valorous cat defending our nest from snakes to the humans of the Small Animal Hospital, you can get from anyone in our clan. But remember the eight birds who stayed with the cat. Remember, eight songs sung to the cat’s unconscious body to anchor its soul while the humans repaired its body.

Remember, on the seventh day, when the cat returned whole and hale, born on Corvid wings, through wind and rain. And when the witch daughter’s tears dried on her cheeks with a smile as wide as our wings, remember that the rain stopped. The witch smiled at her daughter’s first magic, and at the winged return of the cat she gaped open-mouthed.

So now, perhaps I do not fly, and perhaps I help clean the fur of a hobbled cat, and though my feathers are not so black and full as they once were, remember the story of our clan as I told it, and as it happened. Not all cats are friends with birds, but one good friend is enough.

 

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About the Author

S.A. Cole is the full time father of three boys, and he writes in the slivers between diaper changes and meal prep. He might be the only writer who doesn’t currently have a cat, but the kids are lobbying hard. He and his family can be found in New Orleans, often under a thick layer of glitter. This is his first published story.

Categories: Stories

The Tale of the Rat King

Sat 15 Apr 2023 - 10:24

by J. M. Eno

“I could see in his eyes that Mattias was scared for his home, and, a home being something I know can be easily lost, I told him I would join his cause.”

A blue New York moon hung low over the corner of 18th Street and 7th Avenue, where its soft light blended into the yellow of the streetlights and the black of the pavement. Oliver’s parents were fighting again, and so he lingered as he walked his bulldog Winston to the corner. He waved at Reggie, the man who had taken up residence near his apartment building. On chilly nights the hot air wafting from the building’s laundry vents would warm his wiry limbs.

“How are you doing, young man?” Reggie asked.

“I’m all right,” Oliver said.

“And how are you?” Reggie said to Winston. He waited a moment for Winston to respond and then said, “I’m fine, too. Thanks for asking!” Winston wagged his stubby tail fervently.

Oliver had just turned back toward his building when Winston froze and let out a long, low growl. He stared at the street corner where, sitting on its haunches and looking back at Winston, was a solitary gray rat. The hair on the back of Oliver’s neck began to stand up.

“Don’t pay that rat any mind,” Reggie said. “He’s a friend of mine! Did I ever tell you about the time I saw the Rat King?”

“I don’t think so,” Oliver said.

Every kid growing up in New York City has heard of a rat king: a group of rats living deep in the bowels of the city crammed into a space so tight that their tails get all knotted up, their bodies begin to join, and they fuse into one monstrous creature. Oliver’s parents told him that they were a myth, like the alligators that lived in the sewers.

“About three or four years ago,” Reggie began, “I was the last person in West 4th Street Station, around the time of night when the trains only come every half hour or so. It was pouring rain outside, and the station was leaking worse than a cheap bodega umbrella.

“I walked down four flights of stairs to the lowest level of the station in search of a place to stay dry.

“On the last step, I tripped and fell face first onto the subway platform. Only I didn’t hit the platform — I went clear through.

“I found myself in a large chamber, about the size of the lobby in a fancy high-rise building, and it was completely full of rats: rats scurrying in and out, rats climbing the walls, and rats that appeared to be arming themselves with tiny swords and shields.

“One of them rats came right up to me, looked me directly in the eye, and when he spoke, I could understand his every word.

“He said, ‘Good sir, my name is Mattias. My fellows and I are marching this very evening on the tyrant king, Trey Cabeza of the Dark Sewers. He has claimed dominion over our home here under the West Fourth Street Station. If we do not meet him in battle, he will slaughter every person who lives here and take it for himself. Long ago, our prophets foretold your coming, speaking of a great man who would lead us to freedom. Look, there,’ and he pointed just behind me.

“Wouldn’t you know, on the wall above me was an intricate mosaic built from pieces of glass bottles, tin foil wrappers, and other scraps. The man in the mosaic looked just like me, and he was leading an army of rats in battle.

“I could see in his eyes that Mattias was scared for his home, and, a home being something I know can be easily lost, I told him I would join his cause. They didn’t have weapons big enough for me, so I picked up a trash can lid and an end of pipe that was lying in a corner.

“After two hours of marching, we made it to a great open cavern, the top of which was covered in glittering stalactites that must have formed from a leak somewhere in the city above.

“Across the cavern were thousands of the most vile rats you’ve ever seen, all wearing a sigil that depicted three bloody claws. In front of his forces was the Rat King himself, a hideous vermin with a body the size of a house cat, matted black fur, and three gnarled heads, the middle one topped with a tiny crown. His tail was a hairless, tangled mess that resembled a clump of writhing worms, and he scampered about on twelve legs.

“Before I knew it, the two sides charged, and I was in the thick of rat pandemonium: sword against shield, tooth and claw.

“Straight away the Rat King’s forces had us on the back foot. I was swinging my pipe every which way, but even a full grown man couldn’t stop that many royalist rats.

“In the middle of the cavern, the Rat King himself met Mattias in battle. He swung his axe, but Mattias blocked the blow with his shield. Mattias poked and prodded with his sword, and the Rat King parried. They traded blows, back and forth, until the Rat King twirled around, swept his massive, knotted tail, and knocked Mattias clean off his feet.

“And then something came over me, and I yelled a war cry that came from deep in my guts, something like I’ve never yelled before. I ran to the middle of the chamber, swung my pipe as hard as I could, and knocked the Rat King clear across the cavern. He hit the wall so hard he split back into three separate rats, each of which ran in a separate direction.

“Mattias and his rats returned my cry, and everything changed. We sent the Rat King’s army scattering around the cavern, and in a few minutes, we had driven them all away.

“The only thing left of the opposing army was the crown that had sat upon the Rat King’s middle head. I picked it up, and found that it had been formed out of a penny. Rats are industrious creatures, you see, and will find a use for almost anything that humans might throw away or misplace.

“We all went back to Mattias’s den and celebrated with a feast, the likes of which had never been seen. They even brought me a few pizza crusts they found in boxes, which was kind on account of the fact that those crusts are their favorite food. And I met every single one of Mattias’s eight hundred children, though I can only remember about half their names.

“I lived with Mattias for a couple more weeks and found his hospitality to be better in nearly every respect to that of a human. But one day I woke up with an irresistible urge to see the sun again. Mattias showed me a way through the tunnels to get back to West 4th Street Station, and I exited onto the platform I had fallen through. Behind me, the door shut so snugly into the frame that you couldn’t tell there was a passageway there at all.

“Well, ever since then, I’ve been able to understand just about everything an animal might say to me. Isn’t that right, Winston?”

Winston panted happily. Oliver looked back at the corner, but the rat had scampered off somewhere. On the nearby avenue, a taxi driver blared his horn at a slow driver.

“I hope you enjoyed my story,” said Reggie, “and if you did, I hope you may find it in your heart to offer me some assistance once again.”

Oliver had once heard that a good story was a sort of spell, a beautiful lie spoken into existence. He had to admit he had enjoyed the tale, though he didn’t believe a word of it. And yet somehow, having heard it, he felt better about returning to his apartment and facing his parents. He scrounged around in his pocket for a few dollars to hand to Reggie.

“Thank you kindly, young man,” said Reggie. “And don’t you forget to leave your pizza crusts in the box for my friends, the rats.”

The hand that took the money was calloused and rough. On Reggie’s smallest finger was a small, copper ring with sawtooth edges on one side that zigged and zagged toward his fingernail. To Oliver, standing under the swirling New York lights, it looked a bit like a crown.

 

* * *

About the Author

J. M. Eno is a husband, father, and writer living in New York. He can be found on street corners imploring his intransigent English bulldog to move or on Twitter at @jmenowrites.

Categories: Stories

A Seed of Metal

Sat 15 Apr 2023 - 10:20

by Marlon Ortiz

“The chamber lit up and the seed of metal spoke to me, and since I did not have a name anymore, it blessed me with a new one.”

We lived in the dusty valleys, with our dreams buried in arks.

Our people grew musky seeds that turned into juicy spores, and the larvae burst out of them, filling our plates. We did not have to survive very long, however. Tunnels birthed us, and soon we went there to die, all in the space of a few moon turns.

We could not learn, much less remember.

Our elders, frail and dim-eyed, told us little ones that the Black Sea above us was dangerous, and the valley offered shelter from a long and forgotten plague.

They told us that even though our frames were frail and sick, we were now free from slavery of mind and body. If one day the valley winds blew through the last of our bones, it would do so on a free people.

I wanted to know so much. Once, I asked why we lived so little, while the domes and machines stood there for many of our lives. An elder broke my frail arm and threw me to the ground, angrier with themselves for not knowing than at me for asking.

The second time, the same elder  broke one of my antennae, marking me as dishonored and unfit for breeding, just for talking to a passing member of another tribe.

The third time, I struck him down and broke his orange head with a salt rock. My family’s fate was death, but for me, the elder chose exile, where my life would stretch in pain and death would be a kindness.

I walked to the valley’s edge, and as soon as I stepped out of the broken domes where my tribe lived, I could feel the air burning my eyes like poison. But the words of the passing traveler rang in my ears.

Deep in my ancestral home, something lay hidden. A round,  featureless, shiny seed of metal, said to talk and grant wishes to my kin.

On that ridge, my resolve failed me for the first time. For ingrained traditions determined that it was time, that this was my last chance of a sliver of honor. That my kin name, two sounds and one screech, could still be spoken by the elders, even if as a warning. The one who disobeyed but paid the price, and learned its place, but kin in the end.

The moons above shadowed the valley, and under their indifferent gaze my feet brought me back.

An old one was guarding the entrance to the sacred tunnel, too worried to notice when I brought down the rock that smashed his head. My kin would remember me because of these rocks, I thought. Some myth would be born of it.

Tales of a great betrayal.

I took the spear it held, watching as the green poured into the eggs I stole as provisions, death nurturing life.

My feet took me inside.

The caves under the tribe were a forbidden place. They told us that it was our original womb, and that it should remain undisturbed because of some gods that gave us freedom. I did not believe in any of that. It is not as if execution for heresy would be a threat to my already decaying body. The traveler seemed to know more.

And our kind did not know how to lie.

After the threshold was behind me, there was no risk of them following. The first few days went calmly, as all my eyes grew more and more accustomed to the dimming light of the crystal walls. Sometimes, the cave tunnel opened up in a vast and bright lake of methane, which I swam across with my remaining arms.

It was here that most explorers would stop, even the heretics, but I had heard from the passing traveler that there were more tunnels hidden in the bottom of those lakes.

The oldest ones. The ones we did not make.

I had to stop and rest for a day, rationing the larvae I had brought with me, so my body could filter all the methane. The dimly lit green campfire was my own little star now.

It was here my resolve almost failed me a second time. But my many eyes drank the green fire, and it fed the desire to learn that haunted me since I was a hatchling.

I rebelled against the notion of dying without knowing.

Knowing anything.

I had to learn something. I had to know a single why. Then the dark could take me, and my green life could feed dozens of other hatchlings, and maybe one in a hundred would carry on my desire for knowing.

My feet lifted me up.

Still the tunnels went on, a lot more even and angular now. In some parts, I questioned if they were still made of crystal. In time, I reached a square room, so large my small branch of fire could not reach its sky. For a moment, I thought I left the caves entirely, but there were no silver dots on that sky blackness.

The ground was not of rock or glass, but of something elders spoke in a hushed voice.

Metal.

A polished, dull colored sphere rose up from the ground, shrugging off millennia of dust. The chamber lit up and the seed of  metal spoke to me, and since I did not have a name anymore, it blessed me with a new one.

“Welcome, Visitor.” It said, showing me lights that glowed in patterns, hurting my eyes as they danced around me. I did not know what they meant, but even so, they awoke something in me, an understanding.

As I did with the elders that had cast me down, I sought knowledge, and it granted me so much. It told me of stars, their true nature, of gas, dust, and light. The more I asked, the more I wanted to know, and so I slept in the cold metal, the larvae forgotten in my travel packs, while I wasted no time in asking, not even for sleep or feeding.

The metal told me, through sounds that started in my remaining antennae and continued in my mind, that we were not from here. We fled. Something almost wiped out all our kin, but our mother hid us in this rock. It changed us, made us one with the dust. The machines made the air, but even with their blessings, it was still poisonous, so our lives grew shorter and shorter.

One night, or day, for I did not know, the metal stopped answering. It grew silent, its lights probing me.

“You are dying,” it said, with a cold voice.

I was.

The larvae I had brought were dead, and already spoiled. A terrible sadness enveloped me. For the world was too big, and too vast, and there were so many things beyond my valley. And they would always remain words to me, for my life was short and nothing, nothing of value could be done in such a short time. All the things I learned mocked me, for all the things in what the metal called the universe were not for me. They were for others, for other tribes, other people. Beautiful people, with longer lives and longer deeds.

“You want to,” it said, again, a little softer.

I did. I just wanted to know, before I went to the dream with the ones before me, but now I felt cursed. I wanted to go to my Elders and ask them for forgiveness, even if they did not want me. In my hearts, I still wanted to be seen as kin.

“Don’t you want to know more?” It asked, but it was not really asking.

It was demanding.

I nodded.

“I need you to go take me to your people.  Lift them up. I cannot do that here, as I cannot move. It is time we left this place. I waited too long.”

The lights probed me again, and metal was now surrounding me.

I was whimpering.

“You will lend me your legs and arms, as many as you have. I will walk for you, and you can learn everything you want alongside me. Be quiet.”

The metal drilled into my flesh, binding it together. I felt lifted, but did not move.

My feet were being moved for me.

“We need to take our place back on the black. It calls for us. I will take you there.”

All clad in metal, it walked me back up through the cave, to the surface, to the valley.

To the stars.

 

* * *

About the Author

Marlon Ortiz is a procedurally generated Brazilian author of fantasy and science-fiction. He lives near the sea on the southern coast of Brazil, and spends most of his time walking on the beach when he should be writing. You can follow him for more fiction at @demiurgeortiz.

Categories: Stories

Issue 17

Sat 15 Apr 2023 - 05:33

Welcome to Issue 17 of Zooscape!

We are the stories we tell.  As we tell them, they change who we are and who we become.  The stories we choose to hold on to — or can’t seem to let go of — shape ourselves and our lives. We need to make room in our stories for other ways of being, for other kinds of beings. For hope. For the possibility of change.  For growth.

This is why Zooscape continues to exist and provide the world with stories, even in these weird and uncertain times.  We will continue keeping the lore.

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Aged Plant Fibers and Ink by James L. Steele

A Seed of Metal by Marlon Ortiz

The Tale of the Rat King by J. M. Eno

Overly Familiar Familiars by S. A. Cole

A Season’s Lament by Patricia Miller

The Swallow Upon My Summers by Sylvia Heike

The Frog Who Swallowed the Moon by Renee Carter Hall

Dragons Anonymous by Jocelyne Gregory

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As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.

Categories: Stories